US must come clean about 'secret prisons'

New York-based Human Rights Watch, citing inmates as sources, said in a report this week that the United States operated a secret prison near the capital Kabul where detainees were abused and tortured as recently as 2004.

The watchdog's Asia research director Sam Zarifi told AFP at the weekend that US forces were indefinitely detaining and mistreating people without charge at various undisclosed bases around the country.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was asked about the allegations at a media briefing in Kabul Wednesday with President Hamid Karzai, who, after translating the question for him, said: "I am sure you don't have them, say you don't have them."

"If I had, then they would be secret," Rumsfeld replied.

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission said the allegations were credible and shocking.