WASHINGTON: U.S. President Barack Obama is set to revive the system of military commissions for prosecuting Guantanamo detainees, but with more legal protections for the accused, the Washington Post reported on Saturday. The new rules would block the use of evidence obtained from coercive interrogations, the Post said, quoting unnamed U.S. government officials. The proposed rules would also tighten the admissibility of hearsay testimony, and allow detainees at the camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- which Obama plans to close – greater freedom to choose their attorneys, the paper said. But it quoted a White House official as saying that no final decision had been made. One source told the paper the plan awaits Obama's approval.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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