photos of dead afghan civilians, including those who are allegedly killed by some of these rogue soldiers. so the army has held on to those as part of the investigation. those photos were turned over to one of the defendants attorneys, and that attorney apparently, somebody at least, leaked those photos to rolling stone. what makes this situation different than the situation at abu graib in iraq, for example, is the u.s. army is the one that stepped forward immediately to begin prosecution before the public even knew about these photos. we re hearing from u.s. military in afghanistan and even from one of the provisional governors that since the u.s. military has been so aggressive in pursuing this and in fact, as you mentioned, corporal morelock has not only been convicted, but sentenced to 24 years in prison, that there hasn t been the kind of negative backlash from afghan civilians as we saw in iraq when
photographed, corporal jeremy morelock, pled guilty in exchange for testifying against members of his team. morelock says the killings were premeditat premeditated. jim miklaszewski is in washington, d.c. for how long has the military had these pictures? reporter: the u.s. military was made aware of the situation nearly a year ago when one of the soldiers from that rogue unit actually came forward and told his commanders that some of the soldiers in his unit were apparently killing unarmed afghan civilians, innocent civilians. so the army launched an immediate investigation. in part of that investigation, they gathered up some 4,000 photos. now, many of those are described to us by army officials as happy snaps. soldiers sitting around with their guns posing, things like that. the kind of photos we ve seen time and time again out of iraq and afghanistan. but in some of these photos, about 120 of them, we see many
souvenirs. on a tape obtained by abc news, corporal jeremy morelock, also charged with murder, told army investigators sergeant gibbs was crazy, that no one could tell him no. you don t want to cross paths with gibbs at all. when it comes to killing people, it s too easy for that guy. reporter: it is shades of vietnam, including allegations that soldiers at the base regularly use drugs, hashish laced with opium, to deal with the stress of their lives in afghanistan. bad days, stressful days, days that we just need an escape. reporter: the military now confirms it is investigating the allegations that the parents of adam winfield tried back in february to warn the army, that both innocent afghan civilians and u.s. soldiers were being put at risk. brian ross, abc news, new york. the fallout from the merger of southwest and airtran airways could impact travel in most of the nation. southwest is buying airtran for nearly $1.5 billion. the deal opens the way for southwest to move
of hashish smoking u.s. soldiers killed afghan civilians for sport, posed with their dead bodies and collected human bones as souvenirs. the facts laid out by the soldiers themselves. cnn obtained the interrogation tapes of four of the soldiers involved. the u.s. military charged five soldiers with premeditated murder. seven more face charges of cover-up in the killings and illegal drug use. all of them members of the 5th combat stryker brigade stationed in washington. one scheduled to face his article 32 court-martial. on the tape you re about to see and hear, jeremy morelock details how on patrol earlier this year and under command of staff sergeant kalvin gibbs also accused he and others took an afghan man from his home, stood him up and killed him. we had this guy by his
week and a half ago. all the way from the beginning of the deployment until now? yeah. stressful days, days that was just needed an escape? the pentagon will not comment on this case beyond the charges filed against these soldiers but cnn also learned the soldiers took photographs, described to us as looking like hunting trophies with their kills. and the pentagon has ordered any attorney involved in this case to return those photographs to military investigators. as we told you, corporal jeremy morelock the first to answer charges. his article 32 about to get under way we re monitoring this case and we re joined from ft. lewis. courtney what is happening? reporter: hi, drew. today s court proceedings is going it look at corporal