June 24, 2007	Sunday	Jamadi-us-Sani 08, 1428

WASHINGTON, June 23: A captured Afghan insurgent commander has been transferred to the US military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, just as a storm of speculation erupted over the facility’s potential closure.

A Pentagon spokesman said on Friday that Haroon al-Afghani, a commander in Hizb-i-Islami Gulbulddin (HiG), was transferred to the “war on terror” prison this week from Afghanistan where he had been held at a US military detention centre.

He is the first Afghan among a total of 16 detainees who have been transferred to Guantanamo since September when President George W. Bush shifted a group of so-called high-value prisoners from secret CIA facilities overseas.

However, the news of Afghani’s transfer coincided with media reports that White House officials had been planning a high-level meeting to discuss closing the prison, where hundreds of inmates have languished since early 2002.

A meeting had been planned for Friday between different federal agencies to discuss Guantanamo Bay, where some 375 “war on terror” suspects are still being held, most without charge and without access to outside visitors.

But the meeting was cancelled late Thursday, amid media reports that a decision on closing the centre was imminent.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino denied any decision would be made soon, simply saying that Friday’s talks had been an ordinary meeting and that “people meet on this issue regularly and frequently.” “I think yesterday’s reporting indicates something was imminent. That is not the case,” Perino said.

“While the president has said that we want to make sure that we close this facility as quickly as possible, he has not put a deadline on it because there are complex issues,” she said.

She stressed that efforts were underway to send prisoners back to their native countries.

“I think we’ve got 80 out of 375 that are about to leave ... we’re trying to ratchet it down,” she said, adding she was not “aware” of plans to transfer to other detention facilities on US soil prisoners who could not be extradited.—AFP