Five detainees held at the US naval base prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were charged with conspiracy on Monday, the Pentagon announced.

The move brought the number of detainees at Guantanamo having been charged to date to nine.

The five detainees were Bhassan Abdullah al Sharbi and Jabrain Said bin al Qahtani of Saudi Arabia, Sufyian Barhoumi of Algeria, Binyman Ahmed Muhammad of Ethiopia, and Omar Ahmed Khadr of Canada.

Fifteen detainees at Guantanamo have been designated for military commission trials, and previously four of them have been formally charged.

In another development, the US Supreme Court agreed Monday to examine the legality of the administration's military tribunals for foreign terror suspects.

The court would decided early next year whether Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the former driver of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, could be tried for war crimes before the military tribunals at Guantanamo.

Hamdan was the first defendant to be tried by the special military tribunals at Guantanamo.

About 500 detainees are still being held at Guantanamo, most of whom were captured in the US-led war in Afghanistan.

(Xinhua News Agency November 8, 2005)