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A U.S. soldier was sentenced to 24 years in prison Wednesday after saying "the plan was to kill people" in a conspiracy with four fellow soldiers to kill unarmed Afghan civilians.

The plea deal had been in place for nearly two months, so the sentence "wasn't really a surprise" to Morlock, Spinner told reporters.

The Cuban government has freed the last two dissidents still in jail after a crackdown on opposition activists in 2003. Jose Ferrer and Felix Navarro were among 75 opponents of the government arrested eight years ago.

The dissidents' freedom was brokered by the Roman Catholic Church last year, with most agreeing to go into exile. The remaining prisoners had refused to leave the island. Mr Navarro, 57, a teacher and political activist, and 40-year-old Mr Ferrer, a fisherman, were freed early on Wednesday.

The British government doesn't "participate in, solicit, encourage or condone" the use of torture for any purpose, the British foreign secretary said. British Foreign Secretary William said his office was determined to strengthen reporting mechanisms for torture or mistreatment for overseas staff.

"The U.K. government's policy is clear," he said in a statement. "We do not participate in, solicit, encourage or condone the use of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment for any purpose."

The Palestinian Authority asked for international protection Monday citing a sharp rise in Israeli settler violence against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank.

The call came after three Israelis from the Havat Maon settlement allegedly stabbed and seriously injured 33-year-old Mahmud Ibrahim Awad of Khirbat Tuba, a tiny village south of the West Bank city of Hebron, as he was walking home Monday morning. Awad was stabbed in the head, chest and arm.

In another incident, Israeli settlers allegedly opened fire at Palestinians during a funeral in the village of Beit Ommar, north of Hebron, injuring two people. One of them, a 59-year-old, was reported in critical condition. The second suffered injuries in the leg.

Commanders in Afghanistan are bracing themselves for possible riots and public fury triggered by the publication of "trophy" photographs of US soldiers posing with the dead bodies of defenceless Afghan civilians they killed.

Senior officials at Nato's International Security Assistance Force in Kabul have compared the pictures published by the German news weekly Der Spiegel to the images of US soldiers abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib in Iraq which sparked waves of anti-US protests around the world.

With a new round of Guantanamo prosecutions on the horizon, a senior Pentagon official has ordered war court defense lawyers to sign freshly minted ground rules that not only gag what they can say to their alleged terrorist clients but also to the public.

Retired Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald issued the 26-page "protective order and procedures" for military and civilian lawyers who already have obtained special security clearances to work at the war court called Camp Justice.