CAIRO, May 24, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – US President George W. Bush rebuffed requests by his Afghani counterpart Hamid Karzai for greater control over military operations or custody of detainees in Afghanistan, The Washington Post reported Tuesday, May 24.

Bush said Monday, May 23, that under the new "strategic partnership" he signed with Karzai Washington would "consult with Afghanistan if it perceives its territorial integrity, independence or security is at risk."

According to the new partnership, the US-led forces will "continue to have the freedom of action required to conduct appropriate military operations based on consultations and pre-agreed procedures."

But Bush dispelled any doubts of Afghan command over American military operations in the country.

"Of course our troops will respond to US commanders, but our US commanders and our diplomatic mission there is in a consultative relationship with the government," he added.

Three and a half years after toppling the Taliban regime, Washington still keeps at least 18,000 troops on the ground.

Yet, the country remains a dangerous place, particularly in remote areas where the government has less authority than tribal elders and regional warlords.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said that the country's security situation has deteriorated significantly in recent weeks, with violent protests, a surge of political killings and attacks on humanitarian workers.

Among the key points of the new agreement was allowing US military forces to have continued access to the key Bagram Air Base as well as other military facilities as "may be mutually determined."

American access to these facilities was necessary for US forces to "help organize, train, equip, and sustain Afghan security forces" reads the joint declaration of the partnership.

The US-led forces will "continue to have the freedom of action required to conduct appropriate military operations based on consultations and pre-agreed procedures."

Most of the US troops in Afghanistan are either based at Bagram airbase north of Kabul or at Kandahar airbase.

Washington also has an operating base at the old Soviet airport of Shindand in the western province of Herat near the Iranian border, and a forward operating base at Salerno in the southeast of the country, not far from Pakistan.

Karzai has been a key advocate for a permanent security relationship with the US but had stopped short of calling for full-time American bases, a sensitive topic in the war-shattered country.

The target of several assassination attempts, he even relies on American bodyguards.

Bush also turned down Karzai's request for Afghanistan to take custody of its citizens being detained by Washington as suspected terrorists, said The Post.

He talked hos guest that Afghanistan lacks facilities where the suspects "can be housed and fed and guarded."

The US is detaining hundreds of former Taliban fighters, many of whom were captured in Afghanistan after the US invasion more than three years ago.

Reports of detainees abuse by American jailers in Bagram and Guantanamo have triggered outrage in Afghanistan and other parts of the Islamic world.

"Our policy, as you know, has been to work our way through those who are being held in Guantanamo and send them back to the host countries," Bush told a joint news conference with Karzai.

"And we will do so over time with the Afghan government."

The meeting fell hard on the heels of unprecedented anti-US outbursts in Afghanistan that left 16 people dead over a Newsweek report that US interrogators desecrated the Noble Qur'an at Guantanamo.

But Karzai, first installed as president by a UN process orchestrated by the US, contended that the "Newsweek story is not America's story," adding that the abuse allegations do "not reflect at all on American people."

He accused provocateurs opposed to his nation's partnership with the US used the report to enflame the violent protests.

Afghans were also infuriated by a New York Times on Friday, May 20, that two Afghan prisoners were tortured to death by American soldiers in the US-run prison at Bagram airbase.

Citing a leaked 2,000-page file on the US Army’s criminal investigation of the case, the daily said the two died in 2002 after being kicked, beaten and hung by their wrists from the ceiling of their cells.

Last week, Karzai said the prisoner abuse "shocked me totally" and vowed to press Bush to take "very, very strong action" against those responsible.

Jean Arnault, UN special representative in Afghanistan, condemned such abuses as “utterly unacceptable and are an affront to everything the international community stands for in Afghanistan”.