There have been calls for calm in Iraq following yesterday's publication of dozens of previously unpublished images of apparent abuse at the US-run Abu Ghraib prison.
The Australian Datelinecurrent affairs TV programme said the images were recorded at the same time as the now-infamous pictures of US soldiers abusing Abu Ghraib detainees that sparked international outrage in 2004.
One of the photos of abuse of Iraqi prisoner at Abu Ghraib released by Australia's Special Broadcasting Service
The grainy, still photographs and video images show prisoners - some bleeding or hooded - bound to beds and doors, sometimes with a smiling US guard beside them.
They include two naked men handcuffed together, a pile of five naked detainees photographed from the rear, and a dog straining at a leash close to the face of a crouching man in an orange jumpsuit.
Several pictures appear to show US soldier Charles Graner, who featured in the earlier photos and was jailed for 10 years for his leading role in the Abu Ghraib abuse.
The images are understood to be from a batch of over 100 photographs and four videos that were handed to the US army's Criminal Investigations Division.
Al-Jazeera TV later aired some of the pictures in the Middle East, at a time of widespread anti-Western protests over published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
The Arab satellite station refrained from showing some of the most shocking and sexually explicit images, however. Excerpts were also broadcast on CNN.
Key Iraqi officials either sought to play down the images, noting the US had already punished the guards responsible.
"I feel bringing up these issues is only going to add heat to an already fragile situation in Iraq and they don't help anybody at all," said an adviser to Iraq's Foreign Ministry. "It will only lead to extra condemnation of Americans, British and later Iraqis who have also been accused of abuse."
Iraq's Human Rights Minister Nermeen Othman said she was "horrified" by the pictures and would study whether any action could be taken against those responsible, even though some offenders have been imprisoned.
A Pentagon spokesman said the abuses at Abu Ghraib had already been fully investigated.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said today the latest images showed clear violations of international humanitarian law.
"We are shocked and dismayed at the mistreatment and abuse displayed in these images," an ICRC spokeswoman said. "The type of treatment in these images . . . very clearly violates the rules of international humanitarian law which are designed to protect people detained in the context of armed conflict."
Officials from the neutral ICRC visited around 12,000 detainees in Iraq last year, including those at four facilities run by multinational forces. But they have been unable to go to Abu Ghraib since January 2005 due to a lack of security.