Fifteen more people have been transferred from a detention center for suspected al Qaeda and Taleban fighters at a US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and freed in their home countries, the Pentagon said Friday.
The detainees came from Afghanistan, Turkey, Tajikistan, Sudan, Iraq, Jordan and Yemen, the Pentagon said in statement.
The 15 were "transferred for release," the Pentagon said, but provided no details on where they were taken.
A defence official said they were dropped off in their home countries.
"The decision to transfer or release a detainee is based on many factors, including whether the detainee is of further intelligence value to the United States and whether he is believed to pose a threat to the United States," the statement said.
So far, 146 detainees have been transferred from at Guantanamo Bay, leaving about 595 prisoners still at the Camp Delta prison camp on the remote base.
A dozen of those transferred were turned over to their home governments in Saudi Arabia, Spain and Russia for continued detention, but the others were freed.
The Pentagon has said that at least one of those freed has rejoined insurgents fighting US forces.
Most of those held at Guantanamo were captured in Afghanistan after a US invasion in 2001 that drove the Taleban from power.
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