BERLIN, Nov 1: Germany has expanded a probe over the desecration of human skeletons in Afghanistan to include 23 soldiers suspected of posing for macabre photographs, a defence ministry spokesman said on Wednesday.Another four troops have been suspended, bringing the total number to six, spokesman Thomas Raabe told a regular government news conference.

He said the investigation only targeted low-ranking soldiers, some of whom have already left the army.

The scandal erupted last week when the top-selling Bild newspaper published photographs taken in 2003 of soldiers in poses obscene, with the human remains.

Television channel RTL then broadcast other images, reportedly taken in 2004 and in other parts of Afghanistan, raising fears that the stunts were widespread among the approximately 2,800 German soldiers stationed in the strife-wracked country.

The skeletons reportedly date from the Russian and British occupations of Afghanistan but it is unclear whether they were those of Afghans or foreigners.

Separately, the news weekly Stern reported in an advance copy of its Thursday issue that elite soldiers stationed in Afghanistan from the end of 2001 painted a symbol from the Nazi-era army on their all-terrain vehicle.

It said that soldiers of the KSK unit (Kommando Spezialkraefte, or 'Special Commando Force) daubed the palm tree symbol of Hitler's Afrika Korps on the side of their vehicle.

A few of our guys are die-hards and thought it was particularly cool to drive around with Wehrmacht insignia, a KSK soldier told Stern.

The magazine said the soldier had also seen vehicles with the Afrika Korps emblem at the KSK home base in the southern German town of Calw.—AFP