A US soldier poses with the corpse of an Afghan
boy – one of three photographs published by German magazine Der Spiegel.
Photograph: AP
Photos show US soldiers in Afghanistan posing with dead
civilians
'Trophy' pictures show US soldiers
posing with corpses of Afghan civilians they are accused of killing for sport
The face of Jeremy Morlock, a young US soldier, grins at the
camera, his hand holding up the head of the dead and bloodied youth he
and his colleagues have just killed in an act military prosecutors say
was premeditated murder.Moments before the picture was taken in
January last year, the unsuspecting victim had been waved over by a
group of US soldiers who had driven to his village in Kandahar province
in one of their armoured Stryker tanks.According to testimony collected by Der
Spiegel magazine the boy had, as a matter of routine, lifted up his shirt to
reveal that he was not hiding a suicide bomb vest.That
was the moment Morlock, according to a pre-arranged plan, threw a
grenade at the boy that exploded while other members of the rogue group
who called themselves the "kill team" opened fire.They would later tell
military investigators that the boy, a farmer's son, had threatened them with
the grenade.The
pictures include a similar photograph of a different soldier posing
with the same victim and a photograph of two other civilians killed by
the unit.There was no sign on Monday of the anticipated public outrage. But
with Afghanistan
on holiday for the Persian new year celebrations, and media outlets
initially unable to get hold of the images, anger may yet build.The
US ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, recently confided to
officials that he feared it might trigger the same kind of scandal as
that at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, where images of prisoners being abused by US
soldiers sparked anti-American protests.For weeks the US
government has been working to pre-empt any outrage, with top officials,
including the US vice president Joe Biden, in talks with Hamid Karzai,
the Afghan president.Despite being a setback in the propaganda
war between the western coalition and its insurgent enemies, Nato will
be relieved that for the time being only a tiny sample of a total
collection of roughly 4,000 images and video clips have found their way
into the public domain.The publication of the photos will also
mark the ultimate disgrace of the group of young US soldiers, who are
currently facing military justice for killing innocent civilians for
sport and mutilating their bodies by cutting off fingers and ripping out
teeth to keep as trophies.Morlock has turned on his former
colleagues, agreeing to testify against them in return for a reduced
jail sentence. Some of the activities of the group are already public,
with 12 men currently on trial in Seattle for their role in the killing
of three civilians. Morlock has told investigators that Staff Sergeant
Calvin Gibbs was the ringleader. In videotaped evidence, he has said
Gibbs would pick out a possible target with a comment such as: "You guys
wanna wax this guy or what?"Gibbs, if found guilty, could receive a life
sentence.Hans-Ulrich Stoldt, a spokesman for Der Spiegel, said the magazine had
other, more graphic photos."We
published three but not others, and we even pixilated those we did
print so that the victims could not be identified," Stoldt said. "We
needed to document [the accusations] in some form, and were as
restrained as possible."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/21/afghanistan-trophy-photos-us-soldier
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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