War In Afghanistan, U.s. Soldier | featured news

Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned photographs of U.S. soldiers posing with the mangled bodies of Afghan insurgent bombers as "inhuman" on Thursday, calling for a rapid transition from NATO to Afghan security to prevent more such incidents.

Karilyn Bales tells Matt Lauer in an interview on NBC's "Today" show the charges that her husband killed 17 Afghan villagers are "unbelievable."

Staff Sgt. Robert Bales will be charged with 17 counts of murder and six counts of assault and attempted murder in connection with the massacre, a senior U.S. defense official tells NBC News.

He is accused of the kind of crime that makes people shiver, the killing of families in their own homes under cover of night, the butchery of defenseless children. Under normal circumstances, Americans would dismiss such an act as worthy of only one response: swift and merciless punishment.

US military sources tell Fox News the American soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians last weekend is Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who is being flown to a military prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.

The Taliban vowed revenge Monday for an "inhumane attack" in which an American soldier allegedly shot to death 16 civilians in southern Afghanistan and torched their bodies - an assault that has fueled anger still simmering after U.S. troops burned Qurans last month.

A U.S. soldier was detained after 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children, were shot dead in what witnesses described on Sunday as a night-time massacre near a U.S. base in Afghanistan's violent south.

More than half of Americans support President Barack Obama's apology for U.S. troops burning copies of the Koran, an incident that triggered a spate of bloody protests and attacks on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has condemned a video that apparently shows U.S. Marines urinating on the corpses of Afghan men, promising to punish those involved. Earlier, an Afghan Taliban spokesman said the video will not affect efforts to broker peace talks.

Soldiers who just returned from Iraq are among several thousand being ordered to Afghanistan in six months as part of a mission designed to beef up Afghan forces ahead of a planned 2014 U.S. military withdrawal, officials said.