Update: 1.09pm THE military has confirmed detaining a man at its barracks over anti-military blogs.
Colonel Pita Driti said Rowland Fenton was questioned and released but denied the suspect was assaulted by soldiers.
It is understood Mr Fenton was taken in twice last night and kept until this morning after being bashed.
Mr Fenton, who was unavailable when contacted on his home phone, was allegedly told to return to the barracks with the names of people associated with him and certain blog spots.
Colonel Driti denied this. He said they had names of people they will be taking in for questioning but declined to release their names.
According to Colonel Driti the suspects are from Suva and some from overseas.
When told that the military's attempts to shut down the blogs had only increased the number of new anti-military blog spots, Colonel Driti said the military would continue to hunt down the bloggers.
''We have our IT guy working on this,'' Colonel Driti said.
But how does the military plan to combat this war on their hands and how far do they intend to go?
''We will take it up to national level if it comes to that,'' the colonel said.
The military would seek the interim Cabinet's advice on how to tackle this war that is beginning to escalate.
He dismissed the query on people's freedom of speech as exercised by the bloggers, saying an emergency regulation was in place and people should realise that certain freedoms were restrcted, including freedom of speech.
''If they are patriotic, if they feel for their country, if they want to do something good for this country, then they should stop what they are doing on the blog spots.''
The colonel is not convinced that any of his men are involved in leaking information to bloggers.
''No, I doubt it but if they are it don't bother me.''
The additional manpower and the use of other resources on this operation, which, in the opinion of IT experts, will do more harm than good, is being financed from the military's budget although, according to the colonel, it's within their budget and will not cost them much.
''When we get to these bloggers we will take them up to the barracks and warn them of the dangers of what they are doing. They will just be warned and advised,'' Colonel Driti said when asked what would happen if the bloggers were caught.
