Cellphones fitted with digital cameras have been banned in US army installations in Iraq on orders from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a business newspaper reported.  

Quoting a Pentagon source, The Business newspaper said the US Defense Department believes that some of the damning photos of US soldiers abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad were taken with camera phones.

"Digital cameras, camcorders and cellphones with cameras have been prohibited in military compounds in Iraq," it said, adding that a "total ban throughout the US military" is in the works.

Disturbing new photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse, which the US government had reportedly tried to keep hidden, were published Friday in the Washington Post newspaper.

The photos emerged along with details of testimony from inmates at Abu Ghraib who said they were sexually molested by female soldiers, beaten, sodomized and forced to eat food from toilets.

(China Daily via agencies, May 24, 2004)