US expands prison in Afghanistan

US expands prison in Afghanistan


Obama has been urged to give Bagram detainees basic legal rights [AFP]

The US military is about to complete a $60m expansion to its prison at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan, where it holds more than 600 so-called enemy combatants.

The near doubling of the prison's size comes as Robert Gates, the US denfence secretary, prepares to "refine" the US postion on its use of Bagram and other facilities, including Guantanamo Bay, on Firday.

Gates, along with Eric Holder, the US attorney general, has been tasked with carrying out a review to determine the fate of detainees held in the US facilities.

Barack Obama, the US president, has been widely praised for moving to shut down the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba, within days of taking office last month.

But with his move to send 17,000 more US troops to Afghanistan to shore up US operations there, the Bagram prison looks set to become more visible and controversial.

Rumi Nielson-Green, a spokeswoman for the US military, told Al Jazeera that the detainees held at Bagram were "unlawful enemy combatants".

"They are individuals who have been removed from the battlefield because they are dangerous to our forces or our coalition partners," she said.

Basic rights urged

Amnesty urged Obama to continue its break from his predecessor's "unlawful detention policies" by ensuring "all US detentions in Afghanistan comply with international law" and giving the detainees access to US courts to challenge their detentions.....




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