United States shuts final prison in Afghanistan

The United States has pulled out of all prisons in Afghanistan and no longer holds any detainees, an official says.

The announcement on Wednesday came just a day after the release of a searing Senate report on the brutal US treatment of "war on terror" detainees triggered worldwide condemnation, including from Afghanistan's new President Ashraf Ghani.

The official confirmed that after a careful review by the Pentagon and the State Department, the last "third-country nationals" in US custody in Afghanistan had been transferred, and the military no longer operated any detention facilities there.

In March 2013, Afghan forces took full control of the notorious Bagram prison, renamed Parwan, and located on the sprawling military airbase. But the US had remained in charge of foreign prisoners.

One of the "black sites" mentioned in the damning 500-page Senate report, where measures such as "rectal feeding" were meted out, was a facility known as the "Salt Pit", located outside the Bagram Air Base.

US management of the Bagram jail, about 40km outside Kabul, had been especially controversial. Rights groups have accused authorities of abusing prisoners at the facility, and a US army report found that two inmates were beaten to death in 2002.