US flies more detainees to Cuba from Afghanistan
( 2002-05-02 10:50 ) (7 )

The US military on Wednesday flew a planeload of al Qaeda and Taliban captives from Afghanistan to the US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the first movement of detainees after a two-month delay to build a new prison.

With a heavily armed military helicopter overhead and Humvees carrying 50-caliber machine guns nearby, 32 shackled prisoners wearing orange jumpsuits were taken off an Air Force cargo plane and loaded onto buses bound for Camp Delta, the new jail at the remote US base in southeastern Cuba.

"It is the first major arrival of detainees since February 15," Marine Corps Maj. James Bell said. "We now have 332 detainees."

Transfers of captives from the Afghanistan war theater to the remote US base in Cuba were halted when the base's controversial open air, chain-link cellblock known as Camp X-Ray was filled to capacity in February.

The temporary prison quickly became a symbol to human rights activists, who criticized the United States' stance that the captives are not prisoners of war under the Geneva conventions and questioned whether the US military was committing human rights violations.

The military task force on running the prison camp on Monday completed the transfer of all 300 detainees from their chain-link cells to the more permanent prison made of solid cells in rows that look like long mobile homes. The new cells have wash basins with running water and flush toilets.

More than 200 al Qaeda and Taliban suspects are still being held in Afghanistan, many of them expected to be moved to Cuba.

None of the Afghan war captives in Afghanistan and Cuba has been charged with crimes, although the Pentagon has left open the possibility that at least some will face military trials authorized by President George W. Bush in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks on America.

Bell said the new prison is prepared to accept@detainees, with 76 empty units ready to be occupied and 204 under construction and set for completion by the end of May.

The latest group of detainees arrived at the US base shortly after 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) aboard an Air Force C-17 Globemaster.

Four Humvees armed with machine guns were stationed around the transport plane and riot-equipped troops formed a perimeter. The detainees, wearing turquoise surgical masks, blacked-out goggles and mittens, disembarked in groups of four, hands shackled in front and ankles chained.

Guards patted them down and search their mouths and shoes for contraband. Two of the men appeared to resist and were forced to the ground by military escorts as they were being loaded aboard two olive-green buses for the trip to Camp Delta.

SURROUNDED BY RAZOR WIRE, SHARPSHOOTERS

Like X-Ray, Camp Delta is surrounded by fences topped with razor wire and ringed by wooden guard towers manned by sharpshooters. But the new camp is enclosed inside a green mesh curtain, which prevents visitors from seeing in and keeps the prisoners from seeing the tightly guarded shoreline nearby.

The new camp has 408 cells, slightly smaller than those at Camp X-Ray.

The new arrivals were to be processed at Camp Delta, a procedure that includes a medical examination, a chest X-ray, fingerprinting, a shower, an identification bracelet and a chance to write a letter to anyone they want.

The prisoners were captured in the US-led war against the al Qaeda group blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks that killed around 3,000 people in the United States, and against the Taliban government that sheltered them in Afghanistan.

The United States military moved the first group to the Guantanamo base -- an arid, wind-swept post in remote southeastern Cuba halfway round the world from Afghanistan -- on Jan. 11.