26 May 2007

Al-Qaeda Illustrated Torture Manual
Courtroom Television Network LLC, New York, NY, US
Self-description: "May 24 [2007] -- In a recent raid on an al-Qaeda safe house in Iraq, U.S. military officials recovered an assortment of crude drawings depicting torture methods like "blowtorch to the skin" and "eye removal." Along with the images, which you'll find on the following pages, soldiers seized various torture implements, like meat cleavers, whips, and wire cutters. Photos of those items can be seen here [i.e. at http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0524072torture7.html - ed.]. The images, which were just declassified by the Department of Defense, also include a picture of a ramshackle Baghdad safe house described as an "al-Qaeda torture chamber. It was there, during an April 24 raid, that soldiers found a man suspended from the ceiling by a chain. According to the military, he had been abducted from his job and was being beaten daily by his captors. In a raid earlier this week, Coalition Forces freed five Iraqis who were found in a padlocked room in Karmah [a town some 70 km NW of Baghdad - ed.]. The group, which included a boy, were reportedly beaten with chains, cables, and hoses. Photos showing injuries sustained by those captives can be found here. (12 pages)."
Site contents: Drawings found in an Al-Qaeda safe house, in pencil and colour, of the following torture techniques: (1) Drilling hands; (2) Severing limbs; (3) Dragging vicitims behind cars; (4) Eye removal; (5) [applying] Blowtorch to the skin; (6) Suspension from ceiling and electrocution; (7) Braking limbs and restricting breath; (8) Binding and beating; (9); Suspending and whipping; (10) [applying] Clothes iron to skin; (11) [crushing] Victim's head in a vice. Also, the site publishes: (a) a colour photograph of Al-Qaeda torture implements; (b) a colour photograph of the Al-Qaeda torture chamber; (c) several colour photographs of damaged bodies of the Iraqi kidnap and torture survivors freed in Karmah on 21 May 2007.
[Acc. to Wikipedia "The Smoking Gun is a website that posts legal documents, arrest records, and police mugshots on a daily basis. The intent is to bring to the public light information that is damning, shocking, outrageous, or amazing, yet also somewhat obscure or unreported by more mainstream media sources." The Smoking Gun website, is owned by The Courtroom Television Network (aka. Court TV), an American cable television network wholly owned by Time Warner - ed.]
URL http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0524072torture1.html
Internet Archive (www.archive.org) [the site was not archived at the time of this abstract. However, in a few weeks time it will be available at web.archive.org/web/* /www.thesmokinggun.com]
Link reported by: T. Matthew Ciolek (tmciolek--at--coombs.anu.edu.au)
* Resource type [news - documents - study - corporate info. - online guide]: Documents
* Publisher [academic - business - government - library - NGO - other]: Business
* Scholarly usefulness [essential - v.useful - useful - interesting - marginal]: V.Useful
* External links to the resource [over 3,000 - under 3,000 - under 1,000 - under 300 - under 100 - under 30]: under 3,000 [in fact, 1040]