Obama calls for punishing US soldiers behind disgusting Afghan body abuse pics

Washington, Apr 19 (ANI): White House spokesman Jay Carney has said President Barack Obama wants American soldiers shown in photos apparently abusing Afghan corpses to be held accountable and punished.

"The conduct depicted in those photos is reprehensible," Jay Carney said.

Carney also expressed disappointment that The Los Angeles Times published the photos, The BBC reports.

The pictures showed the soldiers posing with the mangled remains of suspected suicide bombers.

They showed soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division posing with the remains in Afghanistan's eastern Zabul province.

Some soldiers are seen grinning next to the bodies, while others appear to be holding severed human legs.

Another set of photos, which was published a few months later, apparently showed soldiers from the same division holding a dead man's hand with the middle finger raised.

During a NATO conference on Wednesday, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta apologised 'on behalf of the Department of Defense and the US government'.

"I know that war is ugly and it's violent and I know that young people sometimes caught up in the moment make some very foolish decisions," the report quoted Panetta, as saying.

"I'm not excusing that behaviour, but neither do I want these images to bring further injury to our people and to our relationship with the Afghan people," he added. (ANI)