U.S., Afghans probe claims of body burning

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Alleged taunts were translated
The footage shot by Dupont did not show the messages being broadcast, though it did show that some military vehicles were fitted with speakers and playing loud music.

Dupont told the AP the messages had been broadcast in the local dialect but were translated into English for him by members of the Army psychological operations unit.

He declined to provide further information, however, saying his agent was now handling all queries about the footage.

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Cremation of bodies is not part of Islamic tradition, which calls for remains to be washed, prayed over, wrapped in white cloth and buried within 24 hours.

Dupont said the soldiers who burned the bodies said they did so for hygiene reasons. However, Dupont said the incendiary messages later broadcast by the U.S. army psychological operations unit indicated they were aware that the cremation would be perceived as a desecration.

“They used that as a psychological warfare, I guess you’d call it. They used the fact that the Taliban were burned facing west (toward Mecca),” Dupont told SBS. “They deliberately wanted to incite that much anger from the Taliban so the Taliban could attack them ... . That’s the only way they can find them.”

The SBS report suggested the deliberate burning of bodies could violate the Geneva Conventions governing the treatment of enemy remains in wartime. Under the Geneva Conventions, soldiers must ensure that the “dead are honorably interred, if possible according to the rites of the religion to which they belonged.”

Furthermore, the rules state that bodies should not be cremated, “except for imperative reasons of hygiene or for motives based on the religion of the deceased.”

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