WASHINGTON, March 18: The 300 detainees from the Afghan war held at a US base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will be transferred from temporary cells to a more secure prison next month, a military spokesman said on Monday.

“We expect that the new Delta Camp will be completed by 12 April and we expect to move detainees shortly thereafter,” said Major Stephen Cox, a spokesman on the US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

For now the alleged al-Qaeda or Taliban members live in small individual cells at “Camp X-Ray”, a temporary center hastily built to house the detainees who began arriving on Jan 11.

Officials said Delta Camp will contain 408 units and will be extended later to house as many as 2,000 detainees.

Cox signalled that one of the detainees had been involved in a recent confrontation with guards at the camp’s hospital, but described the incident as minor.

“One detainee had become routinely disruptive when he was associated with two guards,” he said. “The guy was resisting having shackles ... there was physical contact but it is not as if the detainee had a swing at one of the guards.”

He said that a hunger strike that began on February 27 and was followed on and off by most of the detainees was “effectively over.”

The Pentagon is to announce soon the form and the regulations governing the military tribunals that are to be set up to try some of the detainees, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Friday.—AFP