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The Guantanamo Bay prison camp for "war on terror" suspects faced renewed scrutiny and criticism Sunday after three inmates hanged themselves.

The triple suicide on Saturday represents a new challenge for US President George W. Bush's administration, which is under increasing pressure to close the camp from critics that include the United Nations, international human rights organizations, European governments and Britain's top legal advisor.

The deaths, which also came amid a prisoner hunger strike, were the first successful suicide bids after repeated attempts by inmates in the camp, located on a US naval base on the southeastern tip of Cuba.

Rear Admiral Harry Harris, the camp's commander, described the suicides as an act of warfare.

"They are smart, they are creative, they are committed," he said of the prisoners. "They have no regard to life, neither ours nor their own. And I believe this was not an act of desperation, rather an act of asymmetric warfare waged against us."

The first victim was found early on Saturday by an "alert" prison guard who had noticed "something out of the ordinary" in the cell, Harris said in a telephone press conference.

"When it was apparent that the detainee had hung himself, the guard force and medical teams reacted quickly to attempt to save the detainee's life," Harris said.

Two other inmates were also found hanging in their cells after guards checked on other prisoners, he said. They had used clothes and sheets to hang themselves, he told reporters.

Medical teams tried to save all three a Yemeni and two Saudis but they were pronounced dead "after all life-saving measures were exhausted," he said.

There have been 41 suicide attempts by about 25 individual detainees but in the previous cases, US medical personnel were able to save them, according to The Washington Post.

Bush expressed "serious concern" after learning about the suicides, said White House spokesman Tony Snow.

"He also stressed that it was important to treat the bodies humanely and with cultural sensitivity," Snow told reporters.

The Bush administration notified the United Nations, European Union and embassies of Middle Eastern countries, as well as the International Committee of the Red Cross about the suicides, Snow said.

Bush had said on Friday that he hoped to "empty" Guantanamo by sending some detainees home and trying the most dangerous in US courts.

"We're now in the process of working with countries to repatriate people, but there are some that if put out on the streets could create grave harm to American citizens and other citizens of the world," he said.

Lawyers with the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based advocacy group that represents some 200 inmates and helps private attorneys representing other inmates, were saddened but not surprised at hearing about the suicides.

"These deaths reflect the desperation for a basic human need a need for justice, a need to have someone hear what they have to say," said the Center's legal director, William Goodman.

Katherine Newell Bierman, a counter-terrorism counsel for Human Rights Watch, said the suicide attempts would likely continue if the United States did not move to give the detainees a fair trial.

"It is only going to get worse," she told The Los Angeles Times. "They need to close it, and they need to close it responsibly. You need to prosecute the people who may have committed crimes, and the rest of them need to be sent home and need an apology."

(China Daily June 12, 2006)