PERSIAN GULF

IN PRISON PROTEST, FOUR GUARDS AND 12 DETAINEES ARE HURT

Prisoners at Iraq’s largest detention facility protested the transfer of several detainees deemed “unruly” by authorities, throwing rocks and setting tents on fire in a disturbance that injured four guards and 12 detainees, the military said yesterday. Friday’s protest at Camp Bucca – which holds about 6,000 prisoners, nearly two-thirds of all those in Iraq – caused only minor injuries before being brought under control, authorities said. It was the third major incident at an Iraqi prison in three days.

Murtadha al-Hajaj, an official at radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s office in the southern city of Umm Qasr, near Camp Bucca, said several of Mr. al-Sadr’s supporters were wounded during the confrontation. He said they were protesting a lack of access to medical treatment and claimed American guards opened fire, although he did not know if they wounded prisoners.

A U.S. military spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Guy Rudisill, said he did not know if the guards opened fire, but he denied that any detainee was deprived of medical treatment.

Last month, the U.S. military said guards discovered a 600-foot tunnel – dug with makeshift tools – leading out of Camp Bucca. The tunnel reached beyond the compound fence, with an opening hidden beneath a floorboard, but no one had escaped, authorities said.

– Associated Press

INVESTIGATION INVOLVES KUWAITI SUPPLIER OF HALLIBURTON

Lawmakers investigating claims a Kuwaiti supplier to a Halliburton subsidiary charged too much for fuel deliveries to Iraq are complaining about the lack of support the U.S. military and the American company have provided.

Parliamentarian Ali al-Rashed, who heads the five-member investigative committee, said the lack of cooperation from the American military and Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root “harmed the investigation.”

“They [KBR] answered questions and we sent them a letter to clarify some points, but we have not received an answer for three months,” Mr. al-Rashed told the Associated Press. “We consider this lack of cooperation.”

Legislators claim Kuwaiti oil supplier Altanmia Marketing Company made $759,567 a day in net profits from providing KBR with 1,500 tons of fuel a day. State-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, the seller, made $386,910 a day from the contract, the legislators have said.

– Associated Press

SEVEN KILLED IN CLASH AGAINST TERRORISTS

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Security forces battled the biggest group of Islamic terrorists in a nearly two-year campaign, killing seven in a gun battle yesterday and cornering up to 10 others in an isolated desert town, Saudi officials said.

The forces were besieging the building in which the remaining militants were holed up and hoped to take them alive, an Interior Ministry spokesman, Brigadier Mansour al-Turki, told the Associated Press.

During the two-day gun battle, police had to seal off a girls’ elementary school in ar-Rass, central Saudi Arabia, 220 miles northwest of the capital. When the fighting quieted, the teachers and students were evacuated, Mr. al-Turki said.

Mr. al-Turki said the security forces did not intend to flush out the militants soon.

“As long as there are no hostages involved, there’s no reason to rush. We have no problem in giving the operation as much time as it needs,” he said, adding that the militants were well armed and appeared to have plenty of ammunition.

– Associated Press

CENTRAL ASIA

CRACKDOWN ON RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM PRODUCES 13 CONVICTIONS

Courts convicted 13 people of religious extremism in a crackdown on radical Islam in Uzbekistan that critics say has targeted many innocent believers, a rights activist said yesterday.

Four women and nine men were sentenced to prison terms ranging from five to 19 years in trials in Tashkent in March and April, said the leader of the Initiative Group of Human Rights Defenders of Uzbekistan, Surat Ikramov.

Six of the 13 were released under a presidential amnesty after their trial on March 3, Mr. Ikramov said. Dozens more face trials on religious extremism charges throughout the former Soviet republic in Central Asia, he said.

Uzbekistan’s autocratic government has long faced international criticism for its crackdown on Muslims practicing Islam outside state-controlled mosques.

The country emerged as a key American ally after the September 11, 2001, attacks, and hosts hundreds of American troops.

– Associated Press

SOUTHERN AFRICA

MARBURG VIRUS SPREADS IN ANGOLA’S CAPITAL

Panic spread through Angola’s capital yesterday after the worst recorded outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus, an Ebola-like condition that kills with massive internal bleeding, claimed its 150th life.

Many in Luanda, a city of 3.8 million people, withdrew their children from school. Shops ran low on supplies of bleach, which was bought by families to disinfect their water supplies.

State radio broadcast an emergency message every 10 minutes, saying: “Alert, Marburg. Don’t touch any corpse. Inform the health authorities about any suspicious illnesses or death due to bleeding.”

Angola’s health ministry said that 163 cases of Marburg had been recorded so far. All are believed to have originated in the province of Uige, 180 miles northeast of Luanda, on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. Four people have died in the capital, all of whom are thought to have travelled from Uige.

– The Daily Telegraph