WASHINGTON, Sept 24: The United States is investigating the extent of Syria’s role in alleged espionage at the Guantanamo detention center for hundreds of Afghan war prisoners, a top general said on Wednesday.

An Air Force translator, Senior Airman Ahmad al Halabi, was arrested on July 23 on charges of espionage and aiding the enemy by attempting to send intelligence, names and serial numbers of prisoners to Syria, and carrying a laptop with 180 classified notes for delivery to Syria.

“If it turns out that this guy is guilty, and it turns out that he was talking to Syria in some light, then that’s an issue that the government will deal with at the time,” Gen Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters.

But asked whether Syria was directly involved in a plot to spy on the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, he said: “We do not know. We are looking at that.”

In Damascus, Syrian Information Minister Ahmad Al Hassan called the charges “baseless and illogical”.

“How could Syria have spies in Guantanamo? Is the CIA incapable of finding a trustworthy translator?” he said.

Ahmad Halabi is one of two US soldiers detained in a widening espionage case involving the detention camp. An army chaplain is also being held.

The US indictment against Ahmad Halabi charged that he attempted to deliver secret documents to a foreign citizen “with intent or reason to believe it would be used to the injury of the United States or the advantage of Syria, a foreign nation”.

The charges also said he failed to report contact with the Syrian embassy.

The indictment alleges he was heading for Syria around July 23 when he was arrested at Jacksonville naval air station, in Florida, on a flight from Guantanamo.

He had a laptop computer with over 180 electronic versions of notes and two handwritten notes from Guantanamo detainees with the intention of delivering them to a citizen of a foreign government, according to the indictment.

The indictment says the notes included “writings relating to the national defence, which directly concerned intelligence gathering and planning for the United States war against terrorists”.

Among the secret documents, according to the indictment, were copies of:

— information about the movements of military flights to and from the base

— US Southern Command orders for the transfer of detainees to Guantanamo

— an order for preparations for detainee transfers

— classified cellblock information with cell numbers, serial numbers and names of detainees

— an Oct 20, 2002, memorandum on a command inquiry

Other counts of the indictment charged Al Halabi with transferring classified information to an unauthorized computer and attempting to attach a personal laptop computer to a classified military computer.

His arrest, first disclosed on Tuesday, was followed on Sept 10 by that of an army chaplain at Guantanamo, Captain James Yee, on suspicion of espionage.

The 35-year-old Chinese-American, who received religious education in Syria, also was reported to have been found with classified documents, including a detailed sketch of the Guantanamo detention facility.

Pentagon officials have said there is no direct link between the two cases so far, but the two men served at the facility during the same period and likely knew each other.

The arrests, and the hunt for spies, suggests the military fears its premier prison for suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters may have been more broadly compromised by moles.

“We don’t presume that the two we know about is all there is, nor do we presume that there are more,” Gen Pace said. “We need to be very thorough as we go about backtracking who these folks are.”—AFP