NEW YORK, Oct 17: War on terror suspects held at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, suffered 'highly abusive' treatment during interrogations, the New York Times reported on Sunday, citing military guards, intelligence agents and other sources.

The Times said sources described a range of procedures that included 'highly abusive (treatment) occurring over a long period of time'.

In one common procedure, uncooperative prisoners were stripped and made to sit in a chair with their hands and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor, and forced to listen to blaring rock and rap music in a room with flashing strobe lights, a military official told the Times.

At the same time, the room was cooled down with the air-conditioning turned to maximum levels, since the detainees were used to high temperatures from their native countries and their prison cells in the Caribbean island, said the official who witnessed the procedure.

An intelligence official told the newspaper that most of the intense interrogation tactics were focused on a group called the 'Dirty 30' who were believed to be the best potential sources of information.

In August, a report commissioned by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld found that tough interrogation techniques approved by the government were rarely used, the newspaper said. But the tactics used in Guantanamo went beyond what was permissible, sources told the Times.

While uncooperative prisoners were harshly treated, those who cooperated were rewarded with access to a room dubbed 'the love shack' in which they could read magazines, watch television and eat hamburgers from the base's McDonald's restaurant, the newspaper said.

The harsh treatment ceased in April when the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal emerged in Iraq.

A senior State Department human rights official under former president Bill Clinton's administration told the Times the procedure involving undressed prisoners forced to listen to loud music while shackled constituted torture.

"I don't think there's any question that treatment of that character satisfies the severe pain and suffering requirement, be it physical or mental, that is provided for in the Convention Against Torture," said the former official, David Sheffer, who now teaches law at George Washington University.

Pentagon officials declined to comment to the Times on the allegations it revealed, but the Defense Department said in a statement to the daily that the military was providing a "safe, humane and professional detention operation at Guantanamo that is providing valuable information in the war on terrorism".-AFP