WASHINGTON, Dec 20: US military forces have 23 captured al Qaeda or Taliban fighters in their control for interrogation in Afghanistan and on a Navy warship in the Indian Ocean, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said the al Qaeda guerrillas from fugitive Osama bin Laden’s network and Taliban troops, turned over by Afghan forces, were being questioned for intelligence information and to determine if charges will be filed against them.

Among eight detainees on the USS Peleliu in the Arabian Sea were American John Walker Lindh, 20, and Australian David Hicks, 26, converts to Islam who went to Afghanistan to fight for the radical Taliban or Osama.

Fifteen others are being held by US Marines at a special facility being built at Kandahar air base in southern Afghanistan.

Clarke said Pakistan had not yet begun turning over to the United States some of several hundred non-Afghan al Qaeda guerrillas captured in recent days as they fled into Pakistan from Afghanistan.

“We now have a total of 23 detainees in US control,” she said, declining to say whether any were senior officials. “Eight are on the Peleliu, where three were moved yesterday. The other 15 are at Kandahar.”

“They have not started doing it yet,” she said when asked about the expected turnover of perhaps dozens of non-Afghan al Qaeda by Pakistan.—Reuters