ABU GHARIB, Sept 16: US officials said on Tuesday they were holding 10,000 prisoners in Iraq, nearly double the number previously reported, and count among the security cases six inmates claiming to be Americans and two who say they are British.

Some 4,400 were classified as security detainees, including around 3,800 who did not previously “fit into any category”, said Brigadier General Janis Karpinski.

Previous figures given by the US military had put the total number of prisoners at between 5,000 and 5,500.

“We got an order from the secretary of defence (Donald Rumsfeld) to categorise” the 3,800 about a month ago, said Brig Karpinski, without giving details about who these detainees were or when they were captured.

Several hundred third-country nationals were among the prisoners held on security grounds since President leader Saddam Hussein was overthrown in April, she added.

The vast majority of these were captured during the war, she said, while only a “negligible” number had been detained since major combat operations were declared over on May 1.

“Six are claiming to be Americans and two are claiming to be from the UK,” she said, speaking at Abu Gharib prison, 20 kilometres west of Baghdad.

Investigators were seeking to determine whether the claims of US or British nationality were correct.

The six “had accents that suggested they were Americans, but when you talked to them their stories started falling apart”, said Brig Karpinski, commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade now in charge of Iraq’s prisons and detention centres.

The 3,800 recently categorized prisoners were being held in the area of north-central Iraq controlled by the US Army’s Fourth Infantry Division, she said, as US military police held “Abu Gharib Media Day” at the prison.

“We were securing them. We didn’t want people to be confused” about their status before they were classified, she said.

Asked if they had any rights or had access to their families or legal help while they were being “secured”, she said: “It’s not that they don’t have rights ... They have fewer rights than EPWs (enemy prisoners of war).”

But she added that they had not requested any such privileges. Brig Karpinski said the categorising of these prisoners had been mentioned by US officials to reporters but “had not been reported”.

“We have the opportunity to interview them now,” she said, explaining that this could not be done before because they had not been categorized.

Brig Karpinski defined security detainees as those who have attacked US forces or were suspected of involvement in or planning of such attacks.

There were previously some 600 people classified as security detainees, so that category now numbers about 4,400, said Brig Karpinski.

There are 300 enemy prisoners of war, and about 5,300 criminals or suspected criminals in detention, making a rough total of 10,000, she added. —AFP