WASHINGTON, March 11: The Pentagon is seeking help from the US State Department and other agencies to transfer about half of the 540 detainees at the US base in Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Yemen, The New York Times said on Friday quoting top US officials.

Guantanamo was used to house terror suspects chiefly from Afghanistan and Iraq because it was thought to be beyond US laws guaranteeing basic rights to detainees, but recent court rulings allowing prisoners to challenge their detention have made the base less convenient, the officials said.

The plan was backed by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in a February 5 memo, officials said, adding that it was part of a Pentagon effort to halve the Guantanamo prisoner population of about 540 by releasing some and transferring others for continued detention elsewhere.

The sources expected resistance to the transfers from the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency, which in the past have raised concerns that foreign governments could subject prisoners to mistreatment or could harm US security, the sources told the daily.

The State Department would be responsible for negotiating agreements with foreign governments receiving the Guantanamo prisoners to ensure their humane treatment, officials said.

“Our top choice would be to win the war on terrorism and declare an end to it and repatriate everybody,” a senior Defence Department official told The New York Times in an interview.

“The next best solution would be to work with the home governments of the detainees in order to get them to take the necessary steps to mitigate the threat these individuals pose,” he added.

The US detention facility at Guantanamo housed 750 prisoners at its peak in September 2004. Since then 211 have left: the majority have been released, while 65 have been transferred to other countries including 29 to Pakistan, seven to France, seven to Russia, five to Morocco and four to Saudi Arabia, the daily said.—AFP