Six Gitmo Inmates Hurt in Fight With Guards

A group of detainees at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay lured military guards into a compound by staging a suicide attempt, then attacked the Americans with makeshift weapons before guards armed with batons, pepper spray and shotguns were able to subdue them, the military said today.

Six detainees were slightly injured in the melee yesterday, while members of a 10-man U.S. "quick reaction force" that went into the compound sustained only cuts and bruises, the military said.

U.S. guards fired nonlethal rounds from their 12-gauge shotguns and an M203 grenade launcher to quell fighting that began after a detainee was seen preparing to hang himself with sheets from a ceiling, said Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., the commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, in a conference call with reporters.

Earlier in the day yesterday, two detainees in another part of the detention facility at Guantanamo tried to commit suicide by taking large quantities of anti-anxiety medication they had hoarded, Harris said. Both were taken to a naval hospital, where they remained unconscious but in stable condition, he said.

Another detainee claimed he had tried to kill himself but did not have enough drugs, and a fourth was initially thought to have attempted suicide but turned out to have experienced a reaction to medicine he was taking for tuberculosis, Harris said.

The two suicide attempts in Camp One of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility were "clearly coordinated," the commander said. But he said they were apparently unrelated to the attack that occurred later in Camp Four, a medium-security section where detainees live in communal arrangements rather than in individual cells.

Although the inmates there have privileges earned by good behavior, "we consider it to be the most dangerous camp because detainees have the opportunity to plan and act out in groups," Harris said.

The military believes the hanging attempt was a ruse. When guards entered the cell block, they encountered floors slicked with feces, urine and soapy water to make them lose their footing, Harris said. About 10 detainees then assaulted the guards with fan blades, broken light fixtures and other makeshift weapons, he said.

Army Col. Mike Bumgarner, commander of the Joint Detention Group at Guantanamo, said detainees jumped off beds on top of guards, knocking two of them to the floor and causing the soldiers to conclude that their lives were in jeopardy.

"Frankly, we were losing the fight at that point," Bumgarner said. He said guards used riot batons and pepper spray before resorting to nonlethal ammunition. They fired five blasts from shotguns loaded with rounds consisting of 18 rubber pellets and one blast from an M203 grenade launcher that shoots a "blunt rubber spongy type object," he said.

The guards then gained the upper hand. But detainees in two other bays reacted to the fighting, assaulting one other U.S. guard and carrying out "significant property damage" estimated at about $110,000, Bumgarner said. Most of the damage was to camera systems in the detention area, but fans and fluorescent lights were also torn out, he said.

The entire melee lasted about an hour, and guards took another hour to move detainees to more secure cells, Harris said.

Referring to the suicide attempts earlier in the day, he said the military dispenses about 30,000 pills a month -- ranging from headache tablets to prescription medication for anxiety, depression or other mental conditions -- to 200 to 300 of the nearly 500 detainees at Guantanamo.

"We do our best to ensure that detainees are not squirreling away meds," Harris said, "but some get by us, and in his case they got by us."

He said a group of detainees concocted a plan to collect medication over an undetermined period of time and passed the pills to "two jihadists" who either wanted to commit suicide or were told to do so. The drugs were of a type used to treat such disorders as anxiety and insomnia.

"We do not know at this time the quantity of drugs that were ingested," he said.

Since the detention facility at Guantanamo opened to house "enemy combatants" captured in the war on terrorism following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, there have been 41 suicide attempts by a total of 25 detainees, Harris said. However, no detainees have died at the facility, he said.