Karzai Says Afghans to Take Control of Bagram Jail From U.S. Within Month

• Afghan President Hamid Karzai ordered the transfer of the U.S.-run Bagram prison to his government’s control within a month, citing human rights violations.
  
  
• Karzai decided the transfer should be made after hearing a report on the prison from the Constitutional Oversight Commission that “details many cases of violations of the Afghan Constitution and other applicable laws of the country, the relevant international conventions and human rights.
  
  
• The detention center is located in the Bagram Air Base, 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of the capital of Kabul. While the number of high-value prisoners isn’t known, human rights groups allege that detainees are kept in solitary confinement in windowless cells, and have been menaced and forced to strip naked.
  
  
• The U.S. plans to withdraw most of its 98,000 combat soldiers fromAfghanistan by 2014 as it hands over operational control of the war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda to Afghan forces.