U.S. Soldier Charged in Assault on Prisoner

The U.S. military has charged one of its soldiers with assaulting an Afghan prisoner whose hands were bound, said a spokesman at Bagram air base, north of Kabul, the Afghan capital.

Col. Roger King said another soldier saw the prisoner being hit on the head with the butt of an M-4 carbine and reported it.

The suspected soldier was not identified. King called the incident an aberration.

Elements of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, were conducting operations outside Khowst, in the eastern province of Paktia, when the assault took place.