WASHINGTON: Four US marines identified by the military as the soldiers filmed urinating on corpses in Afghanistan are likely to face a court martial after an American military commander said such actions are a “grave breach” of the laws of war.

The Naval Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS) has interviewed two of the soldiers featured in the video laughing and making snide remarks as they urinated on the bloodied bodies of three Afghan men, who have not been identified. It is not clear if the men were members of the Taliban.

In attempt to defuse the growing diplomatic storm, the commanders of US forces in Afghanistan on Friday ordered American troops to treat the bodies of killed enemies and civilians with “appropriate dignity and respect”.

The soldiers were members of a sniper unit that completed a six-month tour of duty in Afghanistan’s Helmund province in September and returned to Camp LeJuene in North Carolina where the video was passed around. The two others are believed to have left the military.

The nature of the charges are unclear although desecrating bodies is a crime under US military law and the Geneva conventions.

The deputy commander of US forces in Afghanistan, lieutenant general Curtis Scaparrotti, said in a message to troops on Friday that “defiling, desecrating, mocking, photographing or filming for personal use insurgent dead constitutes a grave breach” of laws governing armed conflict.

He said it also violates “basic standards of human decency, and can cause serious damage to relations with the Afghan government”.

The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said she believed the men may be guilty of a war crime.

But the actions of the soldiers were not met with universal disapproval.

A prominent anti-Muslim activist in New York, Pamela Geller, who was at the forefront of the campaign against an Islamic centre near Ground Zero and has been embraced by some mainstream Republicans including Newt Gingrich, praised the soldiers for desecrating the Afghan corpses who she called “murderous savages”.

The marine corps has launched its own inquiry led by a general and a senior lawyer.—Dawn/Guardian News Service