The first group of al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners have arrived at the US Navy base in southeastern Cuba under heavy guard.
An Air Force C-17 cargo plane landed at the US base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, this evening after a 27-hour journey from Kandahar.
The 20 shackled prisoners are the first of at least 371 detainees captured in Afghanistan to be shipped away from the region. Many are considered dangerous and possibly suicidal.
The men were flown out in two sets of 10 each, dressed in orange jumpers, chained and with their beards shaven. Their beards, mandatory under the rule of the fundamentalist Taliban, had been shaved for reasons of hygiene, US military officials said.
The US will hold them on the Guantanamo base at Camp X-Ray, a temporary prison camp made of small cells with open chain-link walls, a concrete floor and wooden roof, surrounded by fences topped with razor wire.
