Guantanamo prison looms as option as IS fight ends

The Guantanamo Bay detention center would receive new prisoners for the first time in more than a decade under one option being considered as the US withdraws its forces from Syria and works to resolve the fate of hundreds of captured suspected Islamic State fighters, officials say.

US-backed Syrian fighters have custody of nearly 1,000 suspected IS fighters who the State Department said should be sent back to their home countries and prosecuted.

The Syrian fighters have warned they may not be able to continue to hold the IS fighters after the withdrawal of American forces from Syria ordered by President Donald Trump in December.

If they can't be repatriated, though, the detention centre on the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could be used to hold them "where lawful and appropriate," the State Department said Thursday.

"The Administration's National Strategy for Counterterrorism makes very clear that Law of Armed Conflict detention, including at Guantanamo, remains an important and effective counterterrorism tool," it said in a statement to The Associated Press in response to questions about the prisoners.

Trump had said in his first State of the Union last year that he would use Guantanamo "in many cases" to detain prisoners as part of the fight against Islamic State and al-Qaida.

As a candidate, when asked about what he would do with the controversial detention centre, he said he would "load it up with some bad dudes."
A US official, said Guantanamo is the "option of last resort."