Afghan President Hamid Karzai spoke out against the heart-rending tale of a rogue US Army unit accused of deliberately killing civilians, for the first time on Wednesday.
"They killed our youths for fun, they killed old people, they even planned to kill children," Karzai said.
Karzai said he wanted to make sure Americans knew about the alleged rogue army unit "kill team" accused of murdering Afghan civilians and mutilating their corpses who had posed no threat to the soldiers.
"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 published the 9-page story this week, which contained a series of graphic photographs and extensive details of the numerous allegations against the US soldiers.
The story detailed how a teenage farm worker was picked out in January last year as the first victim of the allegedly drug-addled rogue unit.
Two soldiers threw a grenade at the teenager before gunning him down, then pretended that the youth had attacked them with the grenade. One of those soldiers began a 24-year jail sentence last week.
A photograph accompanying the story shows the missing little finger of the boy's right hand, allegedly cut off as a trophy.
