The US military is denying it has allowed soldiers to try to convert Afghans to Christianity, following a report on Al Jazeera that showed pictures of soldiers with Bibles translated into Pashto and Dari. The military claimed the Bibles were never distributed to Afghans. Al Jazeera also aired footage of Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Hensley, the chief of the US military chaplains in Afghanistan, calling on soldiers to hunt people for Jesus.

Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Hensley: “The Special Forces guys, they hunt men, basically. We do the same things as Christians: we hunt people for Jesus. We do. We hunt them down, get the hound of heaven after them, so we get them into kingdom. Right? That’s what we do. That’s our business.”

The Pentagon criticized Al Jazeera’s report. Military spokesperson Colonel Greg Julian said, “Most of this is taken out of context…This is irresponsible and inappropriate journalism.”