OSLO, Aug 29: US Attorney General John Ashcroft, saying the war on terror was far from over, rejected a fresh plea on Friday to give prisoner of war status to alleged Al Qaeda fighters held at a US naval base in Cuba.

Ashcroft, on a visit to Norway, said the 660 prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay after the US war to oust Al Qaeda and the Taliban from Afghanistan in 2002 were treated with “respect for their humanity” but signalled they could be held indefinitely.

“When you detain unlawful combatants in time of war, generally throughout history there has been the capacity to maintain those individuals as detainees pending the outcome of the conflict,” he told a news conference.

“I will concede this is a different and unique kind of conflict. But it’s pretty clear that the war is very active,” he said, noting bombs in India last week that killed 51 people and deaths of 22 in a bombing in Iraq.—Reuters