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| More than 130 detainees remain at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility |
Four Afghan detainees
at the Guantanamo Bay prison have been sent back to their home country, the
Pentagon says.
Shawali Khan, Khi Ali
Gul, Abdul Ghani and Mohammed Zahir were repatriated after a thorough review of
their cases.
Eight Afghans are
believed to be among the 132 detainees remaining at the US prison in Cuba.
President Barack Obama
has pledged to close the facility, opened in 2002 to hold "enemy
combatants" in what the US termed its war on terror.
'Nowhere
to go'
"As a result of
that review, which examined a number of factors, including security issues,
these men were unanimously approved for transfer by the six departments and
agencies comprising the task force.”
The four Afghan were
flown to Afghanistan's capital Kabul aboard a US military plane and handed over
to the local authorities, a US official was quoted as saying by Reuters news
agency.
The Pentagon provided
no further details.
The repatriation is
the latest in a series of transfers from the Guantanamo Bay, as President Obama
seeks to eventually shut the facility.
Earlier this month,
six prisoners were flown to Uruguay, which said they would enjoy complete
freedom in the South American nation.
About half of the
remaining inmates at the Guantanamo Bay have been cleared for transfer - but
have nowhere to go because their countries of origin are unstable or unsafe.
The facility in Cuba
was opened a year after the 9/11 attacks in the US.
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