Three Arabs hanged themselves with clothes and bedsheets, the first prisoners to die at Guantanamo base since the United States began holding terrorism suspects there in 2002, US officials said today.
The military said guards at the camp in Cuba found the two Saudis and one Yemeni not breathing in their cells shortly after midnight and attempts to resuscitate them failed.
The deaths threw a fresh spotlight on the camp, which has drawn strong criticism internationally and undermined support for the US war on terrorism that was launched after the September 11 attacks.
Guantanamo holds about 460 foreigners captured mainly in Afghanistan where the United States have fought the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Amnesty International urged again that the camp be closed, joining a chorus of criticism from human rights groups.
US officials said there was no indication the Guantanamo suicides were a reaction to Wednesday's killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda's supposed leader in Iraq, in a US air raid.
Prison camp commander Navy Rear Admiral Harry Harris said the suicides were acts of "asymmetrical warfare" and linked to a "mystical" belief at the camp that it would take the deaths of three detainees for the rest to go free.
The US military said the bodies were being treated "with the utmost respect." The three detainees had taken part previously in extended hunger strikes and been force-fed.
They all left suicide notes but no details were made public. Facing indefinite detention, with none of the rights afforded formal prisoners of war or criminal suspects in the US justice system, dozens of the detainees have undertaken hunger strikes and attempted suicide.
The military said 23 inmates have attempted suicide a total of 41 times, 29 of the times by hanging, since the camp opened in January 2002.
"Sadly, suicides like these are entirely predictable when people are held outside the law with no end in sight," said Ken Roth, head of Human Rights Watch in New York.
In May, the United Nations top anti-torture body told the United States that any secret jails it ran for foreign terrorism suspects, along with the Guantanamo Bay facility, were illegal and should be closed.
The US Supreme Court is expected to rule this month on the legitimacy of special military tribunals set up at the camp to try some of the prisoners for war crimes. Ten detainees face hearings before the tribunals. The Pentagon says the detainees come from 40 countries and the West Bank, with the largest number from Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Yemen.