ANGUISH: An Afghan weeps yesterday over the bodies of the victims — who included women and kids — as another man (inset) surveys bloodstains left on one home’s floor. (EPA)

(AP)

SHOCKING: Villagers huddle with soldiers in Afghanistan’s Panjwai district yesterday outside the homes where officials and locals say a rampaging US staff sergeant opened fire on residents as they slept. (ZUMAPRESS.com)

A rogue US soldier yesterday killed 16 civilians — including nine children and three women — in an apparently random, door-to-door shooting spree in two Afghan villages just outside a military base, officials said.

Wearing night-vision equipment during the predawn attack, the soldier rampaged through three homes spraying bullets as the residents slept. Five victims survived.

“Eleven members of my family are dead,” said Haji Samad, a local elder.

“They are all dead.”

The fatally wounded from one house included an elder’s wife, his two sons and two daughters.

The body of a little girl lay on a quilt outside her home, next to that body of an old man.

Authorities said the lone gunman, a staff sergeant out of the “troubled’’ Lewis-McChord base, near Tacoma, Wash., poured caustic chemicals over some bodies to burn them.

The gunman, a regular soldier, had been assigned to support units of special-forces teams, like the Green Berets and Navy SEALs, engaged in a “village stability’’ program. The program pairs elite troops with residents to create a “neighborhood watch.’’

The sergeant, whose name was not released, is a 38-year-old married father of three who is likely from Washington state, Reuters reported.

He served three tours in Iraq and began his first deployment to Afghanistan in December.

He surrendered to NATO authorities, who said he had suffered a “mental breakdown.”

A NATO diplomatic source described the soldier, who carried a rifle with a grenade launcher, as “completely bonkers.”

The massacre took place in the country’s Panjwai district, the birthplace of the Taliban.

It began around 3 a.m. in the traditional Taliban stronghold, where coalition forces have fought for control for years.

The villages — Balandi and Alkozai — are about 500 yards from a US base.

The gunman went into three houses and opened fire, said Abdul Baqi, a resident of Alkozai.

“When it was happening in the middle of the night, we were inside our houses,” Baqi said.

“I heard gunshots and then silence and then gunshots again.”

Bodies littered the area where the grisly attack occurred. Villagers covered some of the corpses with blankets.

Samad said that the walls of his house were spattered with blood, and added that the dead included his children and grandchildren.

“This is an anti-human and anti-Islamic act,” Samad said.

“Nobody is allowed in any religion in the world to kill children and women.”

A woman whose relatives were killed in another home said, “No Taliban were here. No gun battle was going on.

“We don’t know why this foreign soldier came and killed our innocent family members. Either he was drunk or he was enjoying killing civilians.”

Despite swift condolences by US leaders — both President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called Afghan President Hamid Karzai — the massacre added fuel to the volatile relationship already strained by the burning of Muslim holy books last month on a NATO base.

Six American troops have been killed by their Afghan colleagues since the Koran burnings came to light, and the violence had just started to calm down.

Recently, Gen. John Allen, the top US commander in Afghanistan, visited troops at a base that was attacked and urged soldiers not to give in to the impulse for revenge.

It is unclear whether revenge was a motive for yesterday’s civilian shootings.

“This is an assassination, an intentional killing of innocent civilians and cannot be forgiven,” Karzai said. “The government and the people of Afghanistan demand an explanation from the United States of this incident.”

The shooting shocked US forces all the way up the chain of command, where leaders vowed to find out what happened.

“I offer my condolences to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives, and to the people of Afghanistan, who have endured too much violence and suffering,” Obama said.

“This incident is tragic and shocking, and does not represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan.

“I fully support Secretary Panetta’s and General Allen’s commitment to get the facts as quickly as possible and to hold accountable anyone responsible.”

Given the extent of the rampage, some villagers speculated that the attack involved more than one killer.

Some witnesses said that there were several soldiers and that they were drunk.

But American officials insisted the gunman acted alone.

“Based on the preliminary information we have, this account is flatly wrong,” a senior defense official in Washington said.

A spokesman for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said the sergeant “walked back to the base and turned himself in to US forces this morning.”

The spokesman said there were no military operations in the area when the shootings occurred.

The five wounded victims included a 15-year-old boy who was shot in the leg and spoke to Karzai over the phone.

He described how the killer entered his house in the middle of the night, woke up his family and began shooting them.

The US Embassy in Kabul said anti-US reprisals were possible following the slaughter, and urged caution among Americans traveling or living in Afghanistan.

Early this morning, in fact, the Taliban vowed revenge.

The massacre came two days after NATO helicopters, apparently hunting Taliban insurgents, instead fired on civilians in eastern Afghanistan, killing four and wounding three.

Five years ago, several Marines opened fire with automatic weapons, killing nearly 20 civilians in eastern Afghanistan after a suicide car bomb struck their convoy, wounding one Marine.

Soldiers from the killer’s base, Lewis-McChord, have previously been convicted of criminal acts.

Four Lewis-McChord soldiers were convicted in the deliberate thrill killings of three Afghan civilians in 2010.

The military newspaper Stars and Stripes called it “the most troubled base in the military” that year.