U.S./Afghanistan: Cremation Of Taliban Dead Leads To Fallout

http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/11/c2e93e8e-d57c-4f8f-a171-8bd27b55a257.html

In early October, the U.S. military in Afghanistan began investigating soldiers who burned the bodies of two Taliban fighters. Cremation is forbidden under Islam. A videotape of the incident in southern Afghanistan showed the soldiers using loudspeakers to call the attention of a nearby village to the burned bodies in an effort to draw out suspected Taliban fighters there and engage them in battle. On 26 November, U.S. General Jason Kamiya, the operational commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, said the military probe concluded that two junior officers who ordered the cremations would be reprimanded, but not face criminal prosecution. Yesterday, Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Navid Moez called the punishment "very lenient" and said that in Afghanistan, the burning of bodies is "unacceptable."


Washington, 29 November 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Under the U.S. military Field Manual and the Geneva Conventions, it is standard procedure for U.S. soldiers to bury, not burn, the remains of slain enemies.

But a Pentagon spokesman, Major Todd Vician, noted that the weather on 1 October in southern Afghanistan was hot -- over 30 degrees Celsius -- and that the two bodies were rapidly decomposing. He said the Americans had been ordered to stay near where the bodies lay.

Under these circumstances, Vician said, the Americans chose the option of cremating the body for hygienic reasons. Here, he said, is where the soldiers made a miscalculation. "They are taught, essentially, that enemy combatants may be buried or cremated. But while cremation is allowable for hygiene reasons under the Geneva Convention, it's not an acceptable practice according to the Afghan traditions and culture, and that's what's come up as a part of this investigation," he told RFE/RL.