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Guantanamo manual leaked on web

The manual prohibits abuse or corporal punishment of prisoners
A US military operating manual for the Guantanamo prison camp dating from 2003 has been released on the internet.
The 238-page manual gives precise instructions for guards on handling prisoners and running the camp.

The US military said the manual seemed authentic but was out of date and should not have been publicly released.

About 340 prisoners are still held at Guantanamo, which was opened in 2002 to detain people suspected of terrorism or links to al-Qaeda or the Taleban.

Allegations of abuse at the camp have been lodged by detainees, their lawyers and human rights groups.

Calls from both within the US and around the world to close the camp have gone unanswered.

Abuse prohibited

A US military spokesman said the manual was not classified but was meant for official use only.


There are still about 340 detainees at Guantanamo
The spokesman, Lt Col Ed Bush, said the rules "have evolved significantly" since 2003.

The document prohibits abuse or corporal punishment but says new detainees should be held in near isolation for their first two weeks.

One section of the manual says some detainees should not have access to visitors from the International Committee of the Red Cross, something the US military has denied.

Precise instructions are given on how to search a prisoner's cell, and how to pepper spray an unruly detainee.

Four pages are taken up to explain how new prisoners should be taken off the plane they arrive on and transported to the main prison camp.

A large new complex is being built at Guantanamo Bay where the US plans to hold military tribunals for about 80 of the detainees.

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Security guard kills Iraqi driver

Heavily armed convoys are a common sight in Baghdad
An Iraqi taxi driver has been shot dead in Baghdad by a guard from an American private security firm hired to protect United States diplomats.
Iraqi police said the driver had pulled aside for a convoy guarded by the firm DynCorp, but mistakenly pulled out again before the last vehicle passed.

DynCorp said a guard opened fire when the driver ignored warnings to stop.

Iraq's interior ministry said it was investigating after the latest in a string of shootings by security firms.

A major diplomatic row blew up in September when at least 17 civilians were killed in an incident involving another American security company, Blackwater.

DynCorp, one of the big American security companies operating in Iraq, has contracts with the American embassy in Baghdad and to train Iraqi police.

Police say there was no threat to the convoy in the latest incident, which occurred on Saturday, but that the killing was the result of a misunderstanding.

The DynCorp guard opened fire, hitting the taxi's engine but also fatally wounding Mohammad Khodeir, who died on the way to hospital.

His brother says he is pressing for charges to be brought against DynCorp.

Especially after the Blackwater incident in September, the activities of private security companies are under close scrutiny, BBC Baghdad correspondent Jim Muir says.

There is a new law before parliament, which would lift immunity from foreign security companies and leave their employees open to prosecution.

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US halts Iraq executions over row

Ali Hassan al-Majid was the cousin of late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein
The US has said its forces in Iraq will not hand over three of Saddam Hussein's aides for execution until Iraqi leaders settle a legal row about their cases.
A spokeswoman for the US embassy in Baghdad said the multi-national forces would retain physical custody of the three men until consensus was reached.

Ali Hassan al-Majid, Hussein Rashid and Sultan Hashim were convicted in June of killing up to 180,000 Kurds in 1988.

Iraqi law says they should have been hanged within 30 days of an appeal.

An appeals court upheld the sentences on 4 September.

Coalition forces will continue to retain physical custody of the defendants until this issue is resolved

Mirembe Nantongo
US embassy in Baghdad

But the executions have been delayed by a major row between Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and Iraq's three-man presidential council, which has refused to approve them.

President Jalal Talabani opposes the death penalty in principle, while one of his deputies, Tariq al-Hashemi, has threatened to resign if Sultan Hashim is executed.

Mr Hashemi has said the former defence minister was simply obeying Saddam Hussein in order to survive, as many did at the time.

But Mr Maliki has insisted that if the presidency does not give approval, the hangings should go ahead by default.

'Consensus'

Mr Maliki has said the US has helped violate the constitution.

Responding to Mr Maliki's criticism on Monday, US embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo said that until the controversy among Iraqi authorities was settled, it would not hand over the convicted men.


Two of Iraq's presidential council have opposed the executions

"There continue to be differences in viewpoint within the government of Iraq regarding the necessary Iraqi legal and procedural requirements for carrying out death sentences issued by the Iraqi High Tribunal," she told the AFP news agency.

"Coalition forces will continue to retain physical custody of the defendants until this issue is resolved," she added.

Last month, US ambassador Ryan Crocker insisted that it was essential that all legal aspects of the case be resolved.

"This is an Iraqi judicial process. We think it is very important that the rule of law be respected here and that, when and as necessary, that the time be taken to be sure that all of the issues are clarified," he told reporters in Baghdad.

Saddam Hussein was also tried for his role in the so-called Anfal campaign, alongside the three convicted men, before he was hanged last December

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Turkey 'bombs PKK Iraq targets'

Turkey has massed thousands of troops on the border with Iraq
Turkish military helicopters have bombed suspected Kurdish rebel positions in northern Iraq, Iraqi officials have said.
Several empty villages and an abandoned police post were hit without causing casualties, the officials said.

The strikes came as Ankara said four Turkish soldiers were killed in a clash with Kurdish rebels in Sirnak province.

Turkey has threatened large-scale attacks into Iraq to prevent Kurdish rebels launching attacks into Turkey.

Restraint urged

Kurdish rebels have killed at least 40 Turkish soldiers and civilians in the past month.

Dozens of rebels have also been killed over the same period, Turkey's military says, during which the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has stepped up its attacks.

Ankara stiffened its rhetoric after a PKK ambush on 21 October which killed 12 Turkish soldiers.

Turkey has since about 100,000 troops on the Iraqi border and has threatened to make cross-border incursions to deal with the rebels.

Turkey's Western allies - and Iraq - have urged restraint, but the US has agreed to share intelligence about Kurdish rebel positions.

The PKK - which is treated as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the EU and US - has waged a violent campaign for Kurdish autonomy since 1984, resulting in more than 30,000

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Israel's fight against sex trafficking
By Raffi Berg
BBC News, Jerusalem

Thousands of foreign women have been trafficked for sex in Israel
Marina rarely leaves her two-room home in northern Israel these days.

She is in hiding - wanted by the Israeli authorities for being an illegal immigrant, and by the criminal gangs who brought her here to sell her into prostitution.

Marina - not her real name - was lured to Israel by human traffickers.

During the height of the phenomenon, from the beginning of the 1990s to the early years of 2000, an estimated 3,000 women a year were brought to Israel on the false promise of jobs and a better way of life.

"When I was in the Ukraine, I had a difficult life," said Marina, who came to Israel in 1999 at the age of 33 after answering a newspaper advertisement offering the opportunity to study abroad.

"I was taken to an apartment in Ashkelon, and other women there told me I was now in prostitution. I became hysterical, but a guy starting hitting me and then others there raped me.

"I was then taken to a place where they sold me - just sold me!" she said, recalling how she was locked in a windowless basement for a month, drank water from a toilet and was deprived of food.

MAIN ORIGINS OF WOMEN TRAFFICKED TO ISRAEL
Russia
Moldova
Ukraine
Uzbekistan
Belarus

That part of her ordeal only ended when she managed to escape, but the physical and mental scars remain.

Last year, the United Nations named Israel as one of the main destinations in the world for trafficked women; it has also consistently appeared as an offender in the annual US State Department's Trafficking in Persons (Tip) report.

While this year's report said Israel was making "significant efforts" to eliminate trafficking, it said it still does not "fully comply with the minimum standards" to do so.

Like Marina, some trafficked women are brought into the country legally, while others are smuggled by Bedouins across the border from Egypt.

In all cases, the traffickers - as many as 20 in the chain from recruitment to sale - take away the women's passports before selling them on to pimps.

Sometimes the women are subjected to degrading human auctions, where they are stripped, examined and sold for $8,000-$10,000.

Sanctions threat

Prostitution in Israel is legal, but pimping and maintaining a brothel are not.

The law however is not widely enforced and few brothels are closed down.


Brothels are illegal in Israel, but many still operate openly
In Tel Aviv's Neve Shaanan district for instance, just a short walk from the city's five-star tourist hotels, brothels masquerading as massage parlours, saunas and even internet cafes, fill the side streets.

One such place even operates opposite the local police station.

There are bars on windows and heavily-built men guard the doors, which are only opened to let customers in and out.

Inside, groups of sullen-looking women sit in dimly-lit rooms, waiting for their next client.

Foreign women fetch the highest prices, with trafficked women forced to work up to 18 hours a day.

For years, the absence of anti-trafficking laws in Israel meant such activity - less risky and often more profitable than trafficking drugs or arms - went unchecked.

"During the first 10 years of trafficking, Israel did absolutely nothing," said Nomi Levenkron, of the Migrant Workers' Hotline, an NGO which helps trafficked women and puts pressure on the state to act.

In 2003 we used to find women who were being raped, jailed and under a great amount of violence. In 2007, the situation is completely different.

Raanan Caspi
Israeli anti-trafficking police chief
"Women were trafficked into Israel - the first case we uncovered was in 1992 - and not much really happened," she said.

"Occasionally traffickers were brought to trial, but the victims were arrested as well, they were forced to testify, and then they were deported."

In 2000, trafficking for sexual exploitation was made a crime but the punishments were light and its implementation was poor, NGOs say.

It was only after repeated criticism of Israel by the United States - and the threat of sanctions - that authorities began to act.

Investigations into suspected traffickers increased, stiff jail terms were handed down and Israel's borders were tightened against people smuggling.

Changing tactics

Campaigners say things began to change for the better in 2004, when the government opened a shelter in north Tel Aviv for women who had been trafficked for sex.

It marked a change in the way the state perceived them - as victims of a crime rather than accomplices.

There are some 30 women at the Maggan shelter - most from former Soviet states, but also five from China.


For years, Israel treated trafficked women as criminals
"When they come here they are in a bad condition," said Rinat Davidovich, the shelter's director.

"Most have sexual diseases and some have hepatitis and even tuberculosis. They also have problems going to sleep because they remember what used to happen to them at night," she said.

"It's very hard and it's a long procedure to start to help and treat them."

Police say their actions have led to a significant drop in the number of women now being trafficked into Israel for sex - hundreds, rather than thousands, a year - and they say the women's working environment has improved too.

"There is a significant change in the conditions that the women are being held in," said anti-trafficking police chief Raanan Caspi.

"In 2003 we used to find women who were being raped, incarcerated and suffering violence. In 2007, the situation is completely different - they get paid in most cases and the conditions that they're in are much more humane."

Now most trafficking occurs through what people like to call discreet apartments and escort agencies

Yedida Wolfe
Task Force on Human Trafficking
But the true picture might not be so clear-cut.

Campaigners say increased police activity has also had an adverse effect. Instead of operating openly in brothels, traffickers have become more discreet, plying their trade in private apartments and escort agencies, making the practice more difficult to detect.

"We've been keeping tabs on trends, in terms of, for instance, prices of exploitative services," said Yedida Wolfe, of the Task Force on Human Trafficking.

"Those prices have not gone up, which leads us to believe that the supply of victims has not gone down.

"While government officials are saying that their efforts have drastically cut the number of victims in the country, the NGOs on the scene really don't feel that's true."

Israel might well have turned a corner in its fight against the traffickers, but the battle is far from won.

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US accused of killing Iraq allies

The US said its forces were looking for senior al-Qaeda members
Leaders of a Sunni tribal group in Iraq formed to fight al-Qaeda say dozens of their men were killed by US forces in a battle north of the capital, Baghdad.
One of the leaders of the Taji Awakening Council said airstrikes killed 45 of his pro-US fighters.

The US military said coalition forces killed 25 suspected insurgents in the Taji area at the same time in an operation targeting al-Qaeda leaders.

A US statement said arms, including anti-aircraft weapons, had been found.

Conflicting accounts

The statement said forces from the US-led coalition "observed several armed men in the target area [near Taji] and, perceiving hostile intent", called in airstrikes.

Ground fighting then ensued followed by more airstrikes on another nearby location.

Several large arms caches were found, including anti-aircraft weapons, US officials said. About 20 prisoners were taken and no coalition casualties were reported.

The coalition troops had been in the area on an operation targeting senior al-Qaeda leaders in central Iraq, the US statement said.

But leaders of the Taji Awakening Council gave a different version of events.

Sheikh Jassem, the head of the council, told Reuters news agency that 45 of his men had been killed by US air strikes while they were manning roadblocks.


A suicide bomber has targeted a police convoy in Kirkuk
He said the weapons the US troops found belonged to the Islamic Army, a Sunni group which has recently joined forces with the Americans.

Another council leader, Mansour Abid Salim, said his men were mistakenly hit by the airstrikes which he tried to call off.

"Right from the first attack [Tuesday night], we have continuously been contacting American commanders that they are hitting us, their friends," he told Al-Jazeera television.

An American military spokesman said the weapons found - including anti-aircraft guns, surface-to-surface missiles and roadside bomb-making components - are not the type of weapons pro-US Iraqi militias like those of the awakening councils usually have.

A number of Sunni tribal groups have formed awakening councils to help US and Iraqi government forces to fight al-Qaeda groups. Some of these self-defence militias include former insurgents.

Separately, in the northern town of Kirkuk, a suicide car bomber targeting a police convoy killed at least six people and wounded nearly 20 others, including a senior police official.

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Bomb kills three near Green Zone

Attacks around the ministerial and US embassy compound are rare
A roadside bomb has killed a US soldier and two Iraqi civilians in the centre of Baghdad, US military officials say.
At least five other people were injured by the explosion near the heavily defended Green Zone housing the US embassy and government ministries.

Correspondents say it is the biggest attack in the area for weeks since an army drive to restore security.

The military also said three US soldiers were killed in separate attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Two soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in Diyala province and a third was shot dead in the city of Mosul.

Rush hour

The roadside bomb in the capital targeted a US convoy near the Green Zone, badly damaging an armoured Stryker vehicle.



Witnesses say the bomb was set off at the foot of a watchtower during the morning rush hour, when hundreds of Iraqis were waiting to enter the zone.

The device was described by US officials as an "explosively formed penetrator" which fires a slug of molten metal capable of penetrating even the most heavily armoured vehicles, the Associated Press news agency notes.

Another civilian was killed in a car bombing in northern Baghdad.

Reports say Iraqi troops have seized the west Baghdad headquarters of the Sunni clerics' group, the Association of Muslim Scholars, hardline critics of the Shia-led government.

Officials at the Sunni Waqf organisation, which reportedly dispatched the troops, say they want to renovate the Um al-Qura mosque, where the group is based.

Separately, FBI agents investigating the Blackwater controversy have reportedly found that at least 14 of 17 killings by Blackwater employees on 16 September broke the rules governing the use of deadly force by private security firms in Iraq.

No evidence supports Blackwater's claim that its employees were fired upon by Iraqi civilians while they were escorting a convoy in west Baghdad, the New York Times reports.

However, the FBI concluded three of the deaths may have been justified under rules that allow lethal force in response to an imminent threat, it says.