Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday strongly condemned an online video appearing to show US Marines urinating on the bloodied corpses of several Taliban fighters, world media said.
The 40-second footage, which was posted on YouTube and other websites, features four men in combat gear standing over the three corpses with their genitals exposed as they relieve themselves. The men can be heard joking.
"This act by American soldiers is simply inhuman and condemnable in the strongest possible terms," said a statement from the president Karzai’s office.
"We expressly ask the US government to urgently investigate the video and apply the most severe punishment to anyone found guilty in this crime."
"The actions portrayed are not consistent with our core values and are not indicative of the character of the Marines in our Corps." Marine Corps headquarters at the Pentagon said, adding that it is investigating the clip but has not yet verified its origin or authenticity.
The case has been referred to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), the Navy's worldwide law enforcement organization, said NCIS spokesman Ed Buice.
"This is yet another barbaric act by foreign forces. Over the past 10 years there have been hundreds of similar cases that were not revealed," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed told AFP.
The video would not affect proposed peace talks, Mujahed added. "I don't think this new issue will affect negotiations which at this stage are mainly about prisoner exchange.”
Some 20,000 Marines are deployed in Afghanistan, mostly in Kandahar and Helmand provinces in the south of the war-ravaged country. The United States and its NATO allies have 130,000 troops fighting the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan
