Karzai condemns US ‘kill team’

fun,they killed old people,they even planned to kill children,” Karzai said in a speech to a group of newly-qualified teachers in Kabul.

“I want the ordinary American people to hear my voice and to know that Afghans old and young are being oppressed in their name.”

Rolling Stone magazine this week published a series of graphic images and a long story including extensive detail of the allegations against the American soldiers.

The story related how a teenage farm worker was picked out in January last year as the first victim of an allegedly drug-addled rogue unit that slaughtered Afghan civilians in the explosive Kandahar region early last year.

Two soldiers,one of whom was last week jailed for 24 years,initially threw a grenade at the teenager before gunning him down,and pretending the youth had attacked them with the grenade.

A photograph accompanying the story shows the little finger of the boy’s right hand is missing,allegedly cut off as a trophy.

In the following months they and others staged a number of such killings,according to the Rolling Stone account,citing witnesses questioned by military investigators after the killings were revealed by a fellow soldier.

“I read all nine pages last night. It was a heart-rending story,” said Karzai. “May God punish them.”