The U.S. military once again condemned the actions of some of its troops in Afghanistan on Wednesday after photographs surfaced of smiling soldiers posing with dead insurgents in the latest battlefield scandal.

The photographs, obtained by the Los Angeles Times, show soldiers posing next to Afghan corpses, including the mangled body of a suicide bomber hoisted by his ankles. In another shot, which the newspaper described but did not publish, two soldiers hold up a dead man’s hand, extending his middle finger.

The 18 photographs were taken in 2010 in Zabul province by soldiers from the 82nd Airborne’s 4th Brigade Combat Team, the newspaper reported. Although the pictures were dated, the fresh disclosure of misconduct extends a string of recent incidents in which U.S. troops have disrespected the dead, allegedly killed Afghan civilians and desecrated the Quran.

U.S. officials, concerned that the cumulative impact will further alienate an Afghan public already weary of foreign military occupation, disavowed the actions depicted in the photographs and said they had already launched investigations.

In Brussels, where NATO ministers were meeting to discuss the war’s progress, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta apologized. He said he “strongly condemned” the soldiers’ actions but portrayed them as immature reactions to battlefield stress.

“This is war, and I know war is ugly, and is violent,” Panetta said. “I know young people sometimes caught up in the moment make some very foolish decisions.”

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“I am not excusing that behavior,” he added.

Rep. Adam Smith (Wash.), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said the problems underscored the need to transfer responsibility for security to Afghan forces as quickly as possible.

“Our presence by its very nature creates tension between us and the local population,” Smith said in an interview Wednesday. “Past a certain point, a foreign presence is as destabilizing as it is stabilizing, and that’s what these incidents are pointing out.”

The photographs mark the latest public relations setback for the U.S. military as it seeks to gradually withdraw from Afghanistan.

In January, an Internet video showed Marines laughing as they urinated on the corpses of three insurgent fighters. In February, riots erupted after U.S. service members inadvertently incinerated copies of the Quran. In March, an Army staff sergeant was charged with killing 17 Afghan villagers, mostly women and children, in Kandahar province.

Meantime, distrust is building between U.S. forces and their Afghan allies. The number of treacherous, lethal attacks by uniformed Afghan security forces against NATO troops and trainers has risen substantially this year.

In addition to condemning the actions depicted in the latest batch of battlefield photographs, the Pentagon also criticized the Los Angeles Times for publishing them.

 


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