U.S. Detains Al-Jazeera Reporter in Iraq

BADHGAD, Iraq – The U.S. military said early Thursday that it had detained an Al-Jazeera (search) reporter, saying she had broken its "ground rules."

A military spokesman in Baghdad said he had no other details on the Wednesday arrest nor on what ground rules were broken by the reporter for the Qatar-based Arabic satellite channel. The U.S. military was not known to have issued any such rules.

Al-Jazeera reported that Baghdad correspondent, Atwar Bahjat (search), was detained while she was covering explosions in Baghad that went off while she was in the area. There were no other immediate details of the blasts.

Al-Jazeera said Bahjat phoned her office and said that she was being interrogated but that no charges had been brought against her. It said she was then transported to Baghdad Airport.

An al-Jazeera correspondent in Spain was detained by Spanish authorities in Madrid Friday while police investigate allegations he is linked to Usama bin Laden's Al Qaeda (search) network.

Tayssir Alouni, 48, who interviewed bin Laden a month after the Sept. 11 attacks, was arrested at his home in southern Spain. He was questioned for nearly three hours at a closed-door hearing in Madrid on Monday, court officials said. He was then ordered held for 72 more hours while police investigated. The order expires Thursday afternoon.

Court officials said police needed more time to investigate paper and electronic documents that were seized when Alouni was arrested.

On Monday, Jihad Ballout, an Al-Jazeera spokesman, said Alouni's continued detention was "shocking." He said the television network is doing all it could to clear Alouni's name.