The soldier, Spec. James Hayes, was accused of punching detainees in the chest, arms and shoulders at a base in Uruzgan Province in July. On Friday, a court-martial convicted him of one count of conspiracy to maltreat and two counts of maltreatment, demoted him to private and ordered him to serve his sentence in a military facility in Kuwait.
"The command takes this matter very seriously," the chief of criminal justice for the American-led forces in Afghanistan, Lt. Col. Bob Fifer, said. A second soldier accused in the incident faces a court-martial on Jan. 30.
In Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan, Taliban insurgents set fire to three schools, in the latest attacks against the American-backed government and its efforts to promote education for all Afghan youths, Afghan officials said.
The three new schools, where 1,000 boys and girls studied, were gutted late Friday, the provincial education chief, Mohammad Qasim, said. No one was reported injured in the fires. Efforts to reach Taliban spokesmen for comment were not successful.
The Taliban banned girls from schools during their rule, which ended when they were ousted by American-led forces in late 2001. Since then, insurgents have staged numerous attacks on schools and teachers, including deadly attacks in recent weeks in Helmand, where British troops will soon be based.
In December, Taliban gunmen dragged a teacher from his classroom and shot him at the gates of his school after he had ignored warnings to stop teaching boys and girls, Afghan officials said. The same month, gunmen shot and killed an 18-year-old male student and a guard at another school in Helmand. The gunmen also opened fire on teachers and said they would be killed unless the schools were shut down.
In Zabul Province, also in the south, a teacher was dragged from his home and beheaded last month.