PESHAWAR, May 10: Hizb-i-Islami chief Gulbaddin Hekmatyar has alleged that United States forces are abusing prisoners in various jails in Afghanistan. A statement purportedly issued by the Hizb-i-Islami chief claimed that the situation in Afghan prisons was worse than in Iraq's Abu Ghraib jail, where US and British forces had been found abusing inmates.

"What the Western media has reported about Iraqi prisoners is only the tip of the iceberg," said the statement, copies of which were delivered at newspapers' offices here on Monday.

Mr Hekmatyar said the US Central Intelligence Agency had broken the record of KGB, the intelligence agency of the former Soviet Union, in human rights violation. He alleged that US troops physically abused innocent Afghans and gave them electric shocks in various prisons in their country.

The US had confessed to the killing of Afghan prisoners during interrogation at Bagram air base when the Amnesty International raised the issue in the international media, the statement said.

The former Afghan prime minister, who has been hiding for a couple of years, criticized the role of the United Nations. He said many countries had announced that they would withdraw their forces form Iraq but they were still cooperating with the United States in Afghanistan.

Mr Hekmatyar said the elements trying to facilitate negotiations between the US and Mujahideen of Iraq and Afghanistan were agents of imperialist powers. He claimed that the United States was trying to convene a "jirga" in Baghdad for pulling out its forces from Iraq.