US Marine guards fire rubber bullets on Guantanamo inmates during unrest

Guards at Camp Delta prison at the Guantanamo Bay naval base fired several non-lethal shots to quell prisoner unrest as they relocated inmates into individual cells, US military officials said.

Weeks of mounting tensions between the military and detainees escalated into violence on Saturday during a raid in which guards forced prisoners living in communal housing to move to individual cells.

"Some detainees resisted with improvised weapons, and in response, four less-than-lethal rounds were fired," the military said. "There were no serious injuries to guards or detainees."

Captain Robert Durand, a military spokesman at the base, said the improvised weapons included "batons and broomsticks." Another official said that at least one detainee had been hit by a rubber bullet, but that there were no further details about any minor injuries or how the prisoners had resisted.

The raid came shortly after a delegation from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) completed a three-week visit to examine the prisoners and study the circumstances of a growing hunger strike that has escalated tensions for weeks.

The head of the ICRC said this week that the group disagrees with the US over its practice of force-feeding captives at Guantanamo. The US advocacy group, Physicians for Human Rights, argues that force-feeding hunger strikers violates medical ethics.

The US military says that the Navy medical staff has been systematically pumping nutritional supplements into the stomachs of detainees who will not eat on their own and are considered medically at risk.