Rioters set fires at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison

By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer Sept. 11, 2009

BAGHDAD – Abu Ghraib prison inmates rioted for a second straight day
Friday to demand better conditions, setting fire to mattresses and
seizing an assault rifle from a guard before authorities said the
situation was brought under control.

Lawmaker Zeinab al-Kinani, who was part of a delegation that
negotiated with the prisoners, said they demanded pardons and also
the replacement of prison staff who they said were mistreating
inmates.

After the delegation agreed to form a committee to study giving
amnesty to some prisoners, most of the inmates returned to their
cells, al-Kinani said. A small group who had refused to end their
protest were forced back into their cells by authorities, and four
prisoners were injured in the process, she said.

The prison, long a byword for brutality under former leader Saddam
Hussein, gained further notoriety with the 2004 release of photos
showing U.S. soldiers abusing prisoners.

The facility is now back under Iraqi control and has been officially
renamed the Baghdad Central Prison, though locals still refer to it
as Abu Ghraib. Eleven U.S. soldiers were eventually convicted of
crimes at the prison.

In Iraq's north on Friday, insurgents attacked a checkpoint west of
the city of Kirkuk, killing five soldiers, said Lt. Col. Khalil
al-Zobaie. The assailants also destroyed a Humvee and made off with
guns and ammunition, he said.

The unrest at Abu Ghraib began Thursday evening when three inmates
started a fire in their cell and tried to overpower guards, U.S.
military spokesman Master Sgt. Nicholas Conner said.

Prison authorities called in the Iraqi army to help quell the
disturbance, and the U.S. military was asked to provide helicopter
support to monitor areas outside the prison, Conner said.

Iraqi authorities reported that three guards and three prisoners were
injured before security forces regained control, Conner said.

The U.S. military said it was not called to help when violence flared
up again on Friday.

Iraqi lawmaker Shatha al-Abousi, who is a member of parliament's
human rights committee, told the AP that two prisoners were killed
during the rioting on Thursday.

But Deputy Justice Minister Busho Ibrahim insisted Friday that there
had been no fatalities in the two days of riots, and she said Iraqi
security forces were now back in full control of the prison.

One inmate had managed to get a rifle from a guard, al-Abousi said,
and it was not clear how authorities got it back.

"The situation is calm now in the prison, and everything has returned
to normal," Ibrahim said without elaborating.

Local reports on what set off the initial violence varied widely. One
said the disturbance was a clash between Sunni and Shiite inmates,
while another said it was an organized protest by inmates demanding
to be allowed to use cell phones.

Shiite lawmakers from a political bloc loyal to anti-American cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr said they had information that the unrest was sparked
by inhumane treatment of inmates by the prison administration. They
also called for an investigation into the incident and said they
would bring it up before parliament.

"We will not let this incident at Abu Ghraib prison pass quietly,"
said spokesman Ahmed al-Masoudi in a statement on the bloc's Web site.

Elsewhere, the casualty toll from a suicide truck bombing Thursday in
the northern village of Wardek rose to 25 dead and 50 injured as more
bodies were pulled from the rubble of destroyed homes, said Iraqi
army Col. Rebwar Younis.

There were no claims of responsibility for the bombing of the Shiite
Kurd village, but it bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida in Iraq and other
Sunni insurgents who remain active in Mosul and surrounding areas in
Ninevah province. U.S. commanders have warned that insurgents there
appear to be trying to stoke an Arab-Kurdish conflict.

In Friday prayers in the holy Shiite city of Karbala, Sheik
Abdul-Mahdi al-Karbalaie, an aide to Iraq's Shiite spiritual leader
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, told worshippers the suicide bombing
"showed a clear negligence of security."

"We call upon the government to take swift and decisive measures to
deal with this negligence," he said. "Not only that, senior officials
should visit checkpoints to monitor the performance of security
forces."