Washington, July 13: President Barack Obama has ordered his national security team to investigate reports that US-led troops suffocated 2,000 alleged Taliban prisoners in Afghanistan.
Obama told CNN in an interview on Sunday that if US forces have violated international norms, he wants to know about it.
“I think that, you know, there are responsibilities that all nations have even in war,” Obama said.
The president’s remarks seem to reverse previous officials’ statements. US authorities had said on Friday that there were no grounds to investigate the 2001 deaths of Taliban prisoners of war.
The allegations date back to November 2001 when the men had surrendered to the US forces during the US-led invasion of Afghanistan.
Human rights groups accuse US troops and their local allies of placing the prisoners in cargo containers for two days without any ventilation.
Forces belonging to General Abdul Rashid Dostum have also said that they had opened fire on the containers and then buried the bodies in mass graves in an Afghan region called Dasht-e-Leili.
Rights activists say Obama’s direction does not guarantee action.
——Agencies