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

A Pentagon spokesman said yesterday 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 center.
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 center 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 are 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.

Meanwhile, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said officials were looking to Afghani to potentially provide information about ongoing insurgent operations. "He commanded multiple HiG terrorist cells, conducted IED (improvised explosive device) attacks in Nangarhar province, and is assessed to have regular contact with senior Al-Qaeda and HiG leadership," Whitman said. Whitman said Afghani was captured in Nangarhar province but would not say when or how long he had been held by the US military in Afghanistan.

It is the first time since September 2003 that a suspected fighter captured in Afghanistan has been directly transferred from the country to Guantanamo. Hundreds of prisoners captured after the fall of the Taliban in late 2001 were shipped to the prison from Afghanistan during 2002, but the practice was stopped.

The move suggested that the Pentagon again wants to use the island prison to hold "high value" prisoners involved in a new wave of insurgent violence in Afghanistan. Whitman said Afghani was transferred to the prison because "he may have additional information with respect to ongoing Al-Qaeda operations, and may have information that is useful to us in thwarting future attacks."

"Remember that Guantanamo serves a number of functions. One is its an intelligence center as well as a detention facility, and its a place where we have built the structure and capacity to try people for ... War crimes through the military commission process."

Human Rights Watch renewed its call for the facility to close, saying the administration's assertion that time was needed for repatriation and the creation of military commissions in the United States were not "legitimate" reasons for delay.