Special report:Tension escalates in Iraq  

    BAGHDAD, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. military said on Saturday that roughly 21,000 Iraqi detainees are in its custody at two U.S.-run prisons in Iraq, despite releasing more than 10,000 other detainees so far in 2008.

    A military statement revealed that the U.S. troops currently hold a total of around 21,000 detainees, some 17,000 of them at Camp Bucca near Basra, and about 3,000 others at Camp Cropper in Baghdad.

    The total number also included a dozen women, over 300 juveniles, about 200 foreigners and about 200 detainees over the age of 60, the statement said.

    The statement also said that more than 10,000 detainees have been released from the U.S.-run prisons in Iraq this year "since implementation of programs designed to better prepare detainees for reintegration into society and to reduce recidivism."

    The U.S troops are authorized by UN Security Council Resolution1790 and the Geneva Convention to detain anyone "necessary for imperative reasons of security," the statement said.

    "There is a detainee review process in place, which judges security risk, so that at any point in that process, detainees can be retained or released," it added.