‘Guantanamo fuels hatred of West and boosts al Qaida’

THE United States must close Guantanamo prison, where its treatment of some 500 terrorism suspects encourages hatred toward the West and bolsters Muslim membership of the al Qaida network, a new report concludes.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) commissioned the report from its human rights representative, Belgian senate president Anne-Marie Lizin, and will vote next week whether to accept its findings.

“A generation of young Muslims, fed on the images of Abu Ghraib, of the treatment reserved for the Guantanamo detainees and rumours about profanation of the Koran, will have filled the al Qaida ranks and those of other extremist groups,” said the report made public yesterday.