British soldiers stripped in Norway bar

LONDON, March 4 (UPI) -- Eight British soldiers have been sent home to face disciplinary action for reportedly taking off their clothes and urinating in a Norwegian bar.

The soldiers, from the Army's 59 Independent Commando Squadron Royal Engineers, drunkenly stripped at a bar in the town of Harstad and began urinating on each other and other customers while hurling profane insults at one another, the Daily Mail reported Tuesday.

"They were drunk and there was a problem in the bar but we are quite used to dealing with British soldiers like this," said Gair Pedersen, a Harstad police spokesman.

The soldiers, who were in Norway for an Arctic training exercise alongside Royal Marines and armed forces from several other NATO countries, have been sent back to Britain to face disciplinary action.

"This is taken extremely seriously," a Defense Ministry official said.