The U.S. military command in eastern Afghanistan has banned embedded media from photographing or record troops killed in action, but that ruling is under review.

The move comes after the Associated Press last month ran a photo of a dying Marine, Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard, despite his family’s wishes.

The recent change is meant to clarify existing rules on what reporters can and cannot do when embedded with U.S. troops in eastern Afghanistan, said Master Sgt. Thomas Clementson, a spokesman for Regional Command-East.

“We periodically review our ground rules and incorporate updates and changes as needed,” Clementson said in an e-mail. “Please bear in mind that these ground rules only apply to embedded media in RC East, which is a point that may have been lost in some of the recent reporting.”

The change appears to have taken effect in late September, but RC-East is already reviewing it, Clementson said.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters Thursday that he has expressed concerns to U.S. Central Command about the way the rule is written.

“CENTCOM understands the concerns that I’ve had; they will tell you that they’ve probably had similar questions about it and that’s why they’re addressing it,” Whitman said.

He called RC-East’s ruling an “isolated incident.”

Col. Wayne Shanks, ISAF public affairs officer, said during a phone interview from Kabul on Thursday that ISAF produces one set of general media guidelines that go to all the regional commands in Afghanistan.

Each regional command is given the leeway to make adjustments to those ground rules based on "command concerns," or other caveats concerning coalition forces within the command.

Shanks was unable to say why RC-East decided to implement the more stringent ground rule.

He also said there is no plan to enforce the new RC-East guideline about recording images of troop casualties across Afghanistan.

"No - we've issued our ground rules," he said.

T.D. Flack contributed from Kandahar

PHOTO: Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard.