Juveniles languish for months in US-run prisons in Iraq - HRW

[Barrett808]

Source: IRIN

BAGHDAD, 2 June 2008 (IRIN) - The traffic light turned to red and as cars stopped at one of Baghdad's central intersections, Haider Jassim Mohammed emerged with tissue boxes, urging drivers to buy one.

Seconds later, a roadside bomb targeted a US military convoy nearby and Mohammed was arrested.

"I was apprehended with seven others by American troops on suspicion of plotting the attack with insurgents and spent nearly six months in two prisons in Baghdad and Basra," Mohammed, 13, told IRIN in Baghdad.

He was accused of cooperating with the insurgents by notifying them about the convoy in the 2006 attack, a charge the US military could not prove and they released him.

On 26 May 2008, the Iraqi military said it had found six juveniles, aged between 14 and 18, in the basement of an abandoned house in the northern city of Mosul after a Saudi militant, who was training them for suicide bombings, was killed in a military operation. Mosul is about 600km north of Baghdad.

According to a military officer, who requested anonymity, the six juveniles were coerced into training by the Saudi militant who reportedly threatened to rape their mothers and sisters, destroy their houses and kill their siblings if they failed to follow his orders.

Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/aedd9c280e103ffb3de4a118baf9a8bc.htm

[leftchick]

1. WTF? A SAUDI???? I am SHOCKED!

I thought it was all Iranians doing the dirty work against the occupiers!

:eyes:

[katerinasmommy]

2. You Dare Question George Bush? Holy Emperor of the Universe? n/t