TV footage threatens good will

American commanders try to undo the calamity.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- The United States has gone to great lengths to win over Afghans, sending billions in aid and using its troops for humanitarian work. But TV footage purportedly showing U.S. soldiers burning the bodies of Taliban rebels threatens to fray that good will.
With Islamic clerics warning of a violent anti-American backlash, the alleged desecration of dead Muslims has American commanders scrambling to contain a public relations calamity that comes as they struggle to bolster support for their war against a stubborn insurgency.
President Hamid Karzai, who recently challenged the need for U.S. airstrikes and house-to-house searches in fighting Taliban rebels, also seemed worried about reaction to the desecration allegation.
Although he condemned the apparent act, Karzai sought to calm passions Friday, saying that "soldiers make mistakes" in war.
Cremation banned
Cremating bodies, even those of animals, is banned in Islam. One Muslim cleric in the Afghan capital, Kabul, said, "Bodies should only be burned in hell."
"The burnings of these bodies is an offense to Muslims everywhere. ... It makes no difference that they were Taliban," the cleric, Said Mohammed Omar, told The Associated Press outside his mosque.
Some students called for street demonstrations.
"We must protest this. If we don't, U.S. soldiers will do the same thing again," said Zabiola, a student leader at Kabul University.
Another student, Jamshid Agha, speaking after Friday prayers, said that when he heard the news, he was "so angry with America, I felt like taking a weapon and fighting."
Although the Afghan press has reported on the alleged desecration, the video hasn't been broadcast here and by late Friday there had been no protest rallies. The last anti-American protests in Afghanistan that turned violent were in May.
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