With the permission of families, news organizations in the US will now be able to show pictures of the coffins of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said photographs of the flag-draped caskets will be allowed if the families of dead soldiers agree.

The move overturns a ban put in place by President George Bush Senior in 1991, when he curtailed media coverage of returning war dead to hide the human cost.

Bush’s administration said the ban was in the interests of bereaved families.

The overhaul of the ban has made at the request of President Obama.