WASHINGTON, February 18, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Pictures of US soldiers abusing hooded and bound detainees in Afghanistan were destroyed by the US army in an effort to avoid another public outrage on the US treatment of detainees following the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, according to army documents revealed Friday, February 18.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which obtained a federal court order in Manhattan to let it see documents about US treatment of detainees around the world, said the documents proved that US efforts to abuse and humiliate the detainees might have been more widespread than thought.

"It's increasingly clear that members of the military were aware of the allegations of torture and that efforts were taken to erase evidence, to shut down investigations and to humiliate the detainees in an effort to silence them," ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero was quoted by the Associated Press as saying.

The US army launched a probe into allegations of detainees' abuses in Afghanistan after a CD found there during a July office cleanup contained pictures of uniformed soldiers pointing guns at bound and hooded detainees.

The investigation showed that the pictures were taken in and around Fire Base Tycze in southern Afghanistan, according to the documents, which blacked out the identities of those interviewed.

The civil liberties group said the army probe into the abuses allegations shows the rippling effect of the Abu Ghraib scandal on the army which feared another public outrage.

"These documents provide more evidence that abuse was not localized or aberrational, but was widespread and systemic. They also provide further evidence that at least in some cases the government is not aggressively investigating credible allegations of abuse," ACLU lawyer Jameel Jaffer was quoted by Reuters as saying.

An army specialist earlier told investigators that he was photographed standing behind a prisoner while holding a weapon to his head, according to the released records.

The specialist said he considered those kinds of pictures bad because they would enrage the public.

Another army specialist earlier told investigators that similar photographs were destroyed after images of torture at Abu Ghraib were leaked to the media, the AP reported, AP said.

One of the so-called "trophy photos" by US soldiers with abused detainees.

Other army documents outlined remarks of an Iraqi detainee, who was taken into US custody in Tikrit when his house was raided in September 2003.

The Iraqi detainee said US soldiers in civilian clothes struck him in the head with a rifle, beat him in the stomach, smacked his leg with a baseball bat, dislocated his arms, stepped on his nose and broke it, shoved an unloaded pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger, and choked him with a rope, according to Reuters.

While abusing him, the man stated, a US interrogator demanded he confesses to crimes and told him, "Today will be the last day in your life."

A medical examination, performed as part of the army's investigation, showed that the detainee had scars on his left leg and scars from an operation on his stomach.

UN human rights officials have repeatedly raised concerns about detainees held in the US military base in Guantanamo Bay as well as abuse in the US-run Abu Ghraib Jail in Baghdad after the occupation of the oil-rich Arab country.

In June, the HRW issued a report entitled “The Road To Abu Ghraib” linking the abuse of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo to policies adopted by US President George W. Bush in his so-called war on terror.