Commanders in Afghanistan are bracing themselves for possible riots and public fury triggered by the publication of trophy" photographs of US soldiers posing with the dead bodies of defenceless Afghan civilians they killed. Senior officials at Nato's International Security Assistance Force in Kabul have compared the pictures published by the German news weekly Der Spiegel to the images of US soldiers abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib in Iraq which sparked waves of anti-US protests around the world. They fear that the pictures could be even more damaging as they show the aftermath of the deliberate murders of Afghan civilians by a rogue US Stryker tank unit that operated in the southern province of Kandahar last year. The case has already created shock around the world, particularly with the revelations that the men cut "trophies" from the bodies of the people they killed. An investigation by Der Spiegel has unearthed approximately 4,000 photos and videos taken by the men. The US military has strived to keep the pictures out of the public domain. The lengthy Spiegel article that accompanies the photographs contains new details about the sadistic behaviour of the men.