Cuba base on alert for captives

The US naval base in Cuba at Guantanamo Bay was put on notice yesterday to serve as a prison camp for Taliban and al-Qaida captives.

Guantanamo housed thousands of Cuban and Haitian refugees in the mid-1990s and offers huge security advantages: access to the US enclave at the south-eastern tip of Cuba is controlled by the US navy.

If the captives were held there, rather than in the US or in another sovereign state, having military tribunals try them would be a simpler matter politically.

The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, described the base as "the least worst place we could have selected". He confirmed preparations were being made to hold detainees there, but said there were "no plans" to hold tribunals at the base.

Mr Rumsfeld said: "It wouldn't be ready for a number of weeks to handle the number of people we would place there."

The US is avoiding calling the detainees "prisoners of war" because international conventions say PoWs must be tried by court martial, which requires higher standards of proof and process than the tribunals proposed by the White House.

US forces are holding 45 suspected al-Qaida and Taliban fighters, 37 at a marine base outside Kandahar and eight on board the USS Peliliu in the Arabian Sea.

Another 100 could be transferred from Pakistan in the next few days, with most likely to be held at the Kandahar base.

Those deemed to be senior figures may be flown offshore for security reasons, before heading to Guantanamo Bay.

Havana is unlikely to be keen on all this.