Karzai Focuses On Prisoner Abuse

Afghan leader Hamid Karzai -- who is scheduled to meet U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington on Sunday - has demanded greater control over American military operations in Afghanistan and vigorous punishment of soldiers who
mistreat prisoners.

He also said he wants the United States to hand over all Afghan prisoners still in U.S. custody.

In a volatile southern province, meanwhile, a U.S. soldier was killed and three were wounded in the latest in a string of attacks launched by loyalists of the ousted Taliban regime.

Speaking to reporters on Saturday before his first visit to the United States since he was installed in December as Afghanistan's first democratically elected president, Karzai demanded more say over operations by the 16,700 U.S. troops still in the country, including an end to raids on the homes of Afghans unless his government was notified beforehand.

"No operations inside Afghanistan should take place without the consultation of the Afghan government," he told reporters.

Karzai -- seen by his critics as an American puppet - issued the tough statement after fresh reports of prisoner abuse by American forces at Bagram, the main military prison north of Kabul, and anti-U.S. riots that broke out across the country earlier this month, leaving at least 15 people dead.

The unrest was triggered by a Newsweek magazine report, later retracted, that the Quran was defiled by interrogators at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and likely further fueled by long-standing complaints of heavy-handed search operations and the deaths of civilians in U.S. operations in Afghanistan.

There were fears a report in Friday's New York Times, based on the Army's criminal investigation into the December 2002 deaths of two Afghans at Bagram, could re-ignite anti-American sentiment.

Karzai said he was "shocked" by allegations of prisoner abuse by poorly trained U.S. soldiers at Bagram and vowed to raise the issue during his four-day U.S. visit that begins Sunday.

"We want the U.S. government to take very, very strong action to take away people like that (who) are working with their forces in Afghanistan," Karzai said. "Definitely ... I will see about that when I am in the United States."

Responding to the abuse allegations, Col. James Yonts, the U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan, said: "The command has made it very clear that any incidents of abuse will not be tolerated."

In Washington, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said the president was "alarmed by the reports of prisoner abuse," and wants them thoroughly investigated. Duffy said seven people were being investigated about abuse at Bagram.

The Times' allegations of maltreatment were supported by Human Rights Watch, a New York-based watchdog, which said that at least six detainees in U.S. custody in Afghanistan have been killed since
2002.

In December, Pentagon officials said that eight deaths of detainees in Afghanistan - including the two mentioned in the Times report - had been investigated since mid-2002. Hundreds of people were detained during and after the campaign by U.S.-led forces to oust the hardline Taliban regime in late 2001.

After the outcry over abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the military also initiated a review of its detention facilities in Afghanistan and later said it had modified some of its procedures, although the review's findings have not been made public.

Also, an Italian aid worker kidnapped in Kabul has been held for
a week with still with no clear word on her fate.