WASHINGTON, Jan 12: US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has ordered a probe of the video showing Marines urinating on dead Taliban.

The video that began circulating online on Wednesday afternoon shows four US Marines apparently urinating over three Taliban corpses somewhere in Afghanistan.

Mr Panetta said he saw the footage and found the behaviour depicted in it “utterly deplorable”.

“It clearly appears to be to us what it appears to be to you — troops urinating on corpses,” Pentagon spokesman Capt John Kirby told reporters on Thursday.

“I condemn it in the strongest possible terms,” Mr Panetta said. “I have ordered the Marine Corps and Isaf commander Gen
John Allen to immediately and fully investigate the incident.”

Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said that Mr Panetta called Afghan President Hamid Karzai about the video and conveyed his regrets. Commandant of the US Marine Corps Gen James  Amos said he too had seen the video and assured Afghans that “those found to have engaged in such conduct will be held accountable to the fullest extent”.

In a statement, the Marine Corps also promised to “fully investigate this matter”. Officials at the headquarters of the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul said a thorough investigation had begun and “any individuals with confirmed involvement will be held fully accountable”.

One of the service members can be heard saying in the recording, “Have a great day, buddy.” The video comes as the US tries to formalise reconciliation talks with the Taliban, whose spokesman on Thursday denounced the act as “barbaric” but not likely to impact planned peace talks.

“Over the past 10 years, there have been hundreds of similar cases that were not revealed,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed said in an electronic message sent to various media outlets.

“First they killed the Afghans with mortars, and they then urinated on their bodies,” Mr Mujahid said of what is shown in the video. “We strongly condemn this inhumane action by the wild American soldiers.”

In a separate statement issued in Kabul, President Karzai called the desecration of dead bodies “completely inhumane”. He urged the US military to punish the Marines.

In Washington, the US-based Council on Islamic-American Relations, a prominent Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, protested the video in a letter faxed to Secretary Panetta. “We condemn this apparent desecration of the dead as a violation of
our nation’s military regulations and of international laws of war prohibiting such disgusting and immoral actions,” the group wrote.