Iraqi orphans moved to better facilities

BAGHDAD — The 24 boys found severely malnourished in a Baghdad orphanage have been moved to a different building in the same facility and are being properly cared for, Iraqi officials said Thursday.

U.S. and Iraqi soldiers found the boys last week naked in a dark room, some tied to beds and too weak to stand once they were unbound, the military said.

The director of the girls' section of the al-Hanan orphanage said the boys had been transferred to her building.

"All necessities, such as food, clothes and medical care, have been provided for them," said Karima Dawood.

Iraqi officials and the military said the boys had been moved from the coed building last month because it was deemed inappropriate for them to live with girls. They have now been returned to the original living arrangement.

AP Television News footage showed the boys, most of whom apparently are mentally handicapped, clothed and sitting in wheelchairs or iron cribs in clean rooms — a stark contrast to the photos shown earlier this week by CBS News that showed many of them lying naked on the floor in filthy conditions. The military said food and clothing were found in a nearby storeroom.

25 civilians are killed in attack on Taliban

KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban militants attacked police posts in southern Afghanistan, triggering NATO airstrikes that left 25 civilians dead, including three infants and the local mullah, a senior police officer said today.

NATO said its overnight bombardment killed most of a group of 30 insurgents and blamed them for the deaths of any innocents, saying they had launched "irresponsible" attacks from civilian homes.

NATO acknowledged for the first time that civilians died in another battle that began last weekend in Uruzgan province, including some possibly in airstrikes. But a Dutch military chief accused the Taliban of killing Afghans who refused to join them during the three-day battle in the town of Chora.

Taliban fighters slashed the throats of eight women and hauled other people out of their homes to kill them, Gen. Dick Berlijn told reporters in The Hague, Netherlands, citing "solid reports" from Afghan police.

Although Taliban attacks have killed some 169 civilians in Afghanistan this year, the death of innocents at the hands of foreign forces often stirs the most anger among a population that expects NATO and U.S. troops to be more careful than insurgents.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai criticized the mounting civilian toll from NATO and U.S.-led military operations as "difficult for us to accept or understand."

By The Associated Press