Updated

President Hamid Karzai on Thursday condemned the use of gunfire by U.S. troops to suppress Afghans angered by a traffic accident involving a military truck that sparked the worst riots in the capital since the fall of the Taliban.

"The coalition opened fire, and we strongly condemn that," Karzai said in a national radio address.

Speaking in his native Pashto language, Karzai used formulations that left open whether the U.S. troops had fired into a crowd that had gathered at the scene of Monday's accident, or only over their heads.

Afghan authorities and the U.S. military are investigating.