The German magazine Der Spiegel has published photos that show U.S. troops in Afghanistan taking part in “trophy killing” of Afghans.

“The guys in my group have murdered an innocent Afghan. He was my age. They planned everything out. I knew about it, but didn’t believe that it would actually happen. Almost everyone in the group knows full well what happened, and they think it’s ok. I’m the only one who doesn’t. I want to do something about it, but I don’t have the courage.”  -Facebook posting by alleged whistleblower

Some of the photos show that the victims were handcuffed together. Another photo shows a dead victim with their pants pulled down, and a U.S. soldier grinning.  Kind of like the Abu Ghraib photos from Iraq, but this time people were murdered.

“We apologize for the distress these photos cause. The actions portrayed in these photographs remain under investigation and are now the subject of ongoing U.S. court-martial proceedings.” -U.S. Army

Notice that the U.S. Army apologizes for the photos, not the actions of their troops.  Army officials have stated that the troops violated policies, but there is no apology to the victim’s families.

The U.S. soldiers, part of the Stryker Brigade, are a self described “Kill Team”.  They faked enemy ambushes so they could justify killing unarmed men.

Der Spiegel magazine published only 3 of the 4,000 photos, because most of the photos were too “disgusting”.  The photos are being used in the court martial hearings.