US guards accused of lewd behaviour

Washington: Private security contractors who guard the US embassy in Kabul have engaged in lewd behaviour and hazed subordinates, according to an investigation released on Tuesday by a government watchdog group.

Their behaviour posed a "significant threat" to security at time when the Taliban was intensifying attacks in the Afghan capital, the report said.

The Project on Government Oversight (Pogo) launched the probe after more than a dozen security guards contacted the group to report misconduct and morale problems within the force of 450 guards that lives at Camp Sullivan.

In one incident in May, more than a dozen guards took weapons and other key equipment and engaged in an unauthorised "cowboy" mission in Kabul, leaving the embassy "largely night blind", Pogo wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The guards dressed in Afghan tunics and scarves in violation of contract rules and hid in abandoned buildings in a reconnaissance mission that was not part of their training or mission.

The report recommends that Defence Secretary Robert Gates immediately assign US military personnel to supervise the guards and remove the management of the current force.

The report also found that supervisors held near-weekly parties in which they gallivanted around virtually nude. Photos and video of the escapades were released with probe.