LEAD: Taliban condemns urination video; liaison office talks go on

Jan 12, 2012, 13:07 GMT

Kabul - The Afghan Taliban movement on Thursday condemned as 'inhuman' a video showing US soldiers urinating on the bodies of what appeared to be Afghan insurgents, but said it would not derail talks over a Taliban liaison office in Doha and a prisoner exchange.

The 39-second video, which appeared on the internet Wednesday, showed at least four US Marines urinating on the bodies at an unknown location in Afghanistan.

'This is an inhuman, immoral and brutal act of the invaders,' Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said by phone from an undisclosed location.

He charged that US soldiers had committed similar 'crimes' since the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan and said such incidents would 'only shorten Americans' and their allies' lives here in Afghanistan.'

Muhahid said preliminary talks on a prisoner exchange and opening a Taliban office in the Qatari capital could continue, although he denied peace talks were being held.

The opening of the Qatar office was seen as an effort to jump-start peace negotiations, as it gives Western negotiators a place at which to contact the Taliban movement.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in a statement issued by his office, said that his government is deeply disturbed by the video of US soldiers' urination. 'This act by American soldiers is simply inhuman and condemnable in the strongest possible terms,' he said.

'We expressly ask the US government to urgently investigate the video and apply the most severe punishment to anyone found guilty in this crime.'

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) also condemned the unidentified US soldiers in the video.

'This disrespectful act is inexplicable and not in keeping with the high moral standards we expect of coalition forces,' it said.

'ISAF strongly condemns the actions depicted in the video, which appear to have been conducted by a small group of US individuals, who apparently are no longer serving in Afghanistan,' it said, adding that the US had begun an investigation.

In another scandal involving US troops in Afghanistan, soldiers who named themselves the 'Kill Team' targeted civilians and killed at least three in the volatile southern province of Kandahar in 2010. The US military has begun prosecutions against five soldiers in the case.

Read more about NATO

Read more about US