(dpa) - Grisly photos of dead Iraqis and Afghans on a networking site for Polish soldiers have forced the military to look for ways to prevent a repeat, an army spokesman said Wednesday.
The photos on the koledzyzwojska.pl website show dead soldiers and civilians, torn limbs and bloodied body parts. Polish prosecutors are investigating whether any soldiers could be charged with crimes.
Polish media reports in recent days called attention to the images. It was unclear who took the photos, when they were taken and how the people in them died.
Dariusz Kacperczyk, spokesman for the Polish Army's operations command, said military officials were weighing how to update the rules of conduct for soldiers.
"We're thinking how to bring about a solution so the situation doesn't repeat itself," he told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. "How we'll do that, we're not sure."
"We just can't ban soldiers taking photos entirely," he said.
Defence officials will consult with lawyers and military leaders in the next week to come up with enforceable regulations, Kasperczyk said.
Ultimately, Kacperczyk said, taking such photos is a matter of the soldiers' conscience; that's what should be addressed and the new regulations will "lean in that direction."
Editors of the Polish website that showed the pictures say they published the images to show the realities of war and the conditions Polish soldiers face, the Polska daily reported.
Poland has soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, although Prime Minister Donald Tusk has pledged to withdraw the last Poles from Iraq by October.
Poland backed the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and had up to 2,500 troops in the multinational force. In Afghanistan, some 1,100 Poles serve in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).