KABUL — President Hamid Karzai suggested Thursday that a speeded-up departure of Western troops is the only way to prevent a recurrence of “painful experiences” such as the sight of American soldiers posing with the body parts of dead insurgents.
In a statement issued by the Afghan presidential palace 24 hours after the Los Angeles Times published photos showing U.S. troops with the remains of suicide bombers and mugging for the camera, Karzai called the behavior depicted “inhumane and provocative.”
“It is such a disgusting act to take photos with body parts and then share it with others,” he said.
The Taliban, in its first public statement since the pictures of U.S. soldiers and dead bombers appeared, denounced the “gruesome acts” depicted in the photos. The militant group also lambasted Afghan soldiers who were present in some of the shots.
“Some Afghan hirelings … posed in the photos, at their masters’ orders, to scorn the remains of martyrs,” the statement said.
The Obama administration has roundly condemned the actions shown in the photos, and the U.S. military has launched an investigation of the incidents, which took place in 2010 but have only now come to light.
The palace statement said Karzai sought an “accelerated and full transition of security responsibilities to Afghan forces, so Afghanistan can take over its own destiny, and thus no such things can be repeated by the foreign forces in Afghanistan.”
The NATO force is to wind down its combat role by the end of 2014, but growing numbers of troop-contributing nations have indicated they will pull out their forces next year. The transfer of security responsibilities to Afghan forces, which has been in progress for a year, is a key prelude to the exit of Western combat troops.
In advance of a NATO summit next month in Chicago, Karzai has been highly critical of his Western patrons. This week, he said NATO’s intelligence failures were primarily to blame for a wide-ranging spate of coordinated attacks in Kabul, the Afghan capital, and elsewhere. He also demanded specific financial commitments that he said must continue once most Western combat troops are gone.
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U.S. copter crashes; death toll unknown • WASHINGTON — A U.S. Army helicopter crashed on a nighttime mission in southwestern Afghanistan on Thursday, and initial reports from the scene indicated that as many as four soldiers may have been killed, U.S. defense officials said.
Two U.S. defense officials said four U.S. troops were aboard the helicopter, identified as an Army Black Hawk. Unspecified weather difficulties may have played a role in the crash, the two officials said, but it also was possible that enemy action was factor.
Web posts show insurgents behind recent attacks • KABUL — Videos and pictures that the Taliban has posted online purportedly show the insurgents who staged this week’s attacks in Kabul and three provinces.
“We will take revenge for the holy Koran from non-Muslims. They have burned our holy Koran. We will take revenge for the same holy Koran, and also we will take revenge for those children and women that they killed in Kandahar a few days ago,” a teenage fighter dressed in a white Islamic burial outfit said in poor English on one video.
Insurgents entered supposedly tightly guarded Kabul and three provincial centers undetected Sunday and fired from buildings on government and foreign installations, including the U.S. Embassy, sparking gun battles with Afghan security forces. Two of the clashes lasted about 18 hours.
The posting of the videos and pictures on the Taliban’s official website and on YouTube late Wednesday supported the view that there were cooperation and coordination between the group and the Haqqani network, the Pakistan-based extremist organization that U.S. and Afghan officials have accused of staging the strikes.
Denver Post wire services
