Gurkha in trouble for beheading dead Taliban

A Gurkha soldier who decapitated a dead Taliban commander is back in Britain today, waiting to hear from army top brass whether he is to face a court martial. The private, in his early 20s, whose identity has not been released, was removed from duty in Afghanistan and is now confined to barracks in Shorncliffe Garrison in Kent.
 
The decapitation took place earlier this month when the 1st Battalion Royal Gurkha Rifles was involved in a fierce firefight in Helmand province’s Babaji area. The unnamed soldier's unit had been told they were looking for a "high value target" and that they must prove they had killed the right man.
 
Having killed the leader, the Gurkhas tried to take his body from the battlefield to show to their commanding officers. But they came under heavy fire.
 
All Gurkhas carry a kukri knife – a curved blade which is the traditional weapon and general purpose tool of Nepal, as well as being a symbol for all Gurkha regiments. Its weight means it can be used to cut muscle and bone with a single stroke.
 
The army says that in the heat of battle the Gurkha private, who had already unsheathed his kukri after running out of ammunition, decided to cut off the dead Taliban commander’s head and take that back to base, leaving the rest of his body on the battlefield.

Decapitation, however, contravenes the Geneva Convention, which forbids soldiers to "demean" their enemies.

A former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, Colonel Richard Kemp, told the Mail on Sunday: "In this case, it appears that the soldier was not acting maliciously, but his actions were clearly ill-judged."

He added: "The Gurkhas are a very fine regiment with a proud tradition of service in the British forces and have fought very bravely in Afghanistan. I have no doubt that this behaviour would be as strongly condemned by the other members of that regiment, as it would by all soldiers in the British forces."

According to some reports, the removal of the man's head would be considered particularly insulting in Muslim Afghanistan. Such importance is placed on the entire body being buried following death that British soldiers often return missing body parts to relatives after a battle has ended.

That said, it's not a taboo that stops the Taliban decapitating their enemies. The headless bodies of 11 civilians accused by the Taliban of spying for foreign forces were found in Uruzgan province only last month. ·