Four people were killed and six injured when a riot erupted at the US-run Camp Bucca prison in southern Iraq near the Kuwaiti border, the US Military said in a statement.
"The violence erupted after a routine search for contraband in one of the camps, 10 compounds," the statement said.
"The riot quickly spread to three additional compounds, with detainees throwing rocks and fashioning weapons from materials inside their living areas," it said.
The military said that after unsuccessful attempts at defusing the crisis on Monday through verbal warnings and use of non-lethal force, guards engaged the "rebellious detainees" to quell the riot.
"The cause of the riot and use of lethal force is currently under investigation by the chain of command and the US Army's Criminal Investigations Division," the statement said.
The US Military says it holds an estimated 7,000 security internees, with 4,700 of those held at Camp Bucca, near the port of Umm Qasr, and 2,300 at Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad.
Meanwhile, workers on Tuesday began a final tally of results from Iraq's elections, logging vote counts from individual precincts into computers in Baghdad.
First-phase hand counting of ballots finished Monday afternoon at all 5,200 stations nationwide. Local centers then forwarded tally sheets and ballots to Baghdad, where vote totals were being compiled.
About 200 clerks were working around the clock to log the results at a bank of 80 computers. Partial results could be released as early as Tuesday night, though final results could take up to 10 days, election officials said.
© 2005 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
