Exclusive rights to pictures of the US bombing of Afghanistan have been bought by the US military from a privately-owned satellite company.
Exclusive copyright on the pictures obtained by the US Defence Department can show the effects of US bombings in minute detail but are inferior to images taken by American military satellites, according to intelligence expert, Mr Duncan Campbell.
Writing in today's Guardiannewspaper, Mr Campbell said the images had been bought retrospectively from Space Imaging, owners of the Ikonossatellite, thereby preventing any public access to the pictures.
The option of a legal barring order on the dissemination of the material was available to the US but the danger of it being challenged under the First Amendment is thought to be behind the decision to buy the rights to all the images.
"The Pentagon has spent millions of dollars to prevent western media from seeing highly accurate civilian satellite pictures," Mr Campbell wrote. He said images already taken, show trainees marching at a camp in Jalalabad and that it would be possible to see any bodies lying on the ground after a US attack.
He said the decision to buy the rights to the pictures was taken last Thursday - the day after reports of heavy civilian casualties from a bombing raid on Jalalabad.