War photographer’s haunting tale of his most shocking picture of US soldiers fighting in Afghanistan
Australian photographer Stephen Dupont reveals what life is like behind the lens in a war zone
ASK Stephen Dupont to pick his favourite photograph and he pauses.
He takes a few minutes to explain that, for a man who spent his life behind a lens in war zones around the world, it’s actually “the cruellest question you can ask”.
He says a photograph of his daughter — the first photograph of his daughter, to be specific — is the most important.
If you ask most people who know his work, they’ll point to another photo.
One that changed the way the world viewed the biggest conflict in a generation.
It was October, 2005, and the Australian photographer was where you’d expect him to be — embedded with soldiers on the other side of the world.
He was in Afghanistan as a freelancer with American soldiers who allowed him access to horrific scenes.
Having been through wars in Sri Lanka and witnessed genocide in Rwanda, Dupont thought he’d seen it all.
Then one morning in Kandahar Province he was proven wrong.
“I was one of the embeds with the US Army’s 173rd Airborne and I couldn’t believe my luck,” Dupont said.
RELATED STORIES
“It’s almost impossible for anyone to hang out with these guys, they never have press with them (but) I got an incredible inside look at their kind of operational tactics and who these people are.
“This incident unfolded after a battle the night before we arrived in this village.
"An American had been killed, some Afghan civilians were wounded and a couple of Taliban had also died.
"Waking up the next morning, they allowed me to go and see the bodies.”
Dupont said the scene he had imagined was nothing like what he saw.
“When I got to the crest of this hill, the Americans were lighting them up.
"The bodies were burning. I took photos and captured video and the nastiness really came through.”
The pictures showed heavily-armed personnel from the combat team known as “Sky Soldiers” standing around while the Taliban fighters’ corpses burned.
“That for me was really shocking.
"They really wanted to piss (the Taliban) off, but at the time I had no idea it was going to be such a big story.”
The photographs were used by the Pyschological Operations team to taunt the enemy.
'I knew I had something extraordinary but I didn’t think it would go around the world'
It’s believed a message was played over a loudspeaker towards a local village harbouring Taliban fighters.
Dupont has previously recalled the contents of the message, read out in local dialect, as including the following message:
“Attention, Taliban, you are all cowardly dogs.
"You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burned.
"You are too scared to come down and retrieve their bodies.
"This just proves you are the ladyboys we always believed you to be.”
Dupont says the purpose was to encourage insurgents to engage in fighting.
“I knew I had something extraordinary but I didn’t think it would go around the world.
"It was the biggest story in the world the next day.”
He said it was hard for him to release the footage because he “enjoyed being with these guys”.
“I knew I had to do it because I had a journalistic obligation.
"I couldn’t hold on to it, that’s not what I’m about. I told my story.”
The fallout was significant.
Within days, senior US officials had launched an investigation.
“What we see in this tape is not at all reflective of the values of the military or of the United States,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in the days that followed.
“The incident, if true, is repugnant, and we look forward to getting to the bottom of it,” Major Matthew McLaughlin, a spokesman for the US Central Command in Florida, said.
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at [email protected] or call 0207 782 4368.