The United States is to hand formal control of the controversial Bagram prison to the Afghan government on Monday, despite apparent disagreements between the two sides on the fate of hundreds of inmates.

A US federal judge on Thursday rejected a new set of rules proposed by the Obama administration that would have placed added restrictions on lawyers' access to Guantanamo Bay detainees.

The US military said Wednesday it has postponed preliminary hearings for the trial of alleged September 11 plotters held at Guantanamo Bay because of Tropical Storm Isaac.

Australia on Tuesday dropped a case against ex-Guantanamo Bay inmate David Hicks over his prison memoir, concluding that his admissions to a US Military Commission would not stand up in court.

Guantanamo inmates receiving medication for psychological problems may have provided unreliable information in their altered mental capacity, said a Pentagon report obtained by AFP Thursday.

Osama bin Laden's former cook and driver Ibrahim al-Qosi returned to his native Sudan on Wednesday after more than a decade of imprisonment at the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

A Canadian watchdog on Wednesday cleared military police involved in transfers of Taliban detainees in Afghanistan, saying they could not have known the prisoners would be subject to torture.

An Israeli soldier who has refused to serve in the Palestinian territories has gone on hunger strike in a military prison in solidarity with Palestinian administrative detainees, a report said on Sunday.

The Supreme Court refused Monday to hear a petition by seven detainees at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba who are challenging the legality of their detention.

The Pentagon insisted Thursday that it has not abused prisoners at Guantanamo Bay after a documentary said US forces a decade ago blared music of children's show "Sesame Street" to break in inmates.

Cuban-American US Senator Marco Rubio, a top Republican vice presidential prospect, made his first-ever trip to the island of his parents' birth Tuesday to examine Guantanamo facilities housing terror detainees.

A special US military tribunal at Guantanamo is weighing whether to hold separate trials for five accused plotters of the September 11 attacks, a defense lawyer said.

US lawmakers struck down a contentious provision Friday that would have curtailed the government's power to indefinitely hold suspected terrorists captured on American soil.

The Pentagon on Thursday released testimony that was censored during court appearances made by the September 11 suspects at Guantanamo on Saturday, with a spokesman attributing the omission to a mistake.

The parents of Bowe Bergdahl, the first American soldier captured in Afghanistan since the US-led war began in 2001, are urging the US government to swap him for Afghan prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, US media reported.

The United States has freed up to 20 detainees from a military prison in Afghanistan over the past two years in an effort to promote reconciliation with insurgent groups, the US embassy said Monday.

An accused September 11 conspirator filed a motion challenging a rule that keeps statements by the Guantanamo detainees secret, his lawyer said.

The Pentagon said Thursday it had transferred two Guantanamo detainees from China's Uighur minority to El Salvador after they were held without charge since 2002.

Canada's government on Wednesday received a formal request from the last Westerner held at the US "war on terror" prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to be transferred to a Canadian jail.

An inter-American rights body admitted for review Friday the case of a man held at Guantanamo Bay for over 10 years, the first time it accepted jurisdiction over the US naval base in Cuba.