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Updated Thursday, January 19, 2012 0:08 am TWN, Reuters

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2 UK soldiers arrested in Afghan child abuse

KABUL--Two British soldiers have been arrested for “inappropriate behavior” in Afghanistan, the British Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday after a newspaper report of child abuse.

Quoting defense sources, Britain's Sun newspaper reported that the pair had abused two Afghan children aged “about 10,” and made recordings of their behavior.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in a statement that the government in Kabul was “deeply disturbed” by reports of abuse, and said their alleged behavior was “immoral.”

The alleged incident comes just a week after a video emerged showing U.S. Marines urinating on corpses, believed to be dead Taliban fighters, that caused outrage across Afghanistan.

“The government of Afghanistan is immensely disgusted by the rise in recent incidents of immoral nature among foreign soldiers that clearly undermine public confidence and the Afghan people's cooperation with foreign troops,” Karzai's office said.

The Royal Military Police have launched an investigation into allegations against the two soldiers, a ministry spokesman said, but declined comment on the nature of the allegations.

“Two service personnel have been arrested, interviewed under caution and released,” the spokesman said, adding that the ministry took any such allegations extremely seriously.

A spokesman for the NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan said they were aware of the allegations.

Anti-American feeling has boiled over, or been whipped up, into violence several times in Afghanistan in recent years, including protests over reports of the desecration of the Muslim holy book that twice sparked deadly riots.

The tape of the Marines also prompted reference to earlier scandals involving U.S. soldiers' treatment of prisoners in Iraq and the killing of unarmed civilians in Afghanistan.

The U.S. military has been prosecuting soldiers from the Army's 5th Stryker Brigade on charges of murdering unarmed Afghan civilians while deployed in Kandahar province in 2010.

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