Sudan wants terror suspects freed

The Guantanamo Bay detainees have been held for two years without trial

Sudan is lobbying to have its citizens released from detention in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Israel, its foreign minister has said.

Mustafa Ismail did not specify how many Sudanese were being held in Guantanamo Bay or Iraq.

He said the United States had agreed to allow Sudanese officials to visit those held in the US military base in Cuba.

The three Sudanese being held in Israel would be freed as part of a deal with the Hezbollah militia, he said.

The BBC's Alfred Taban in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, says that some Sudanese may have been fighting alongside pro-Saddam Hussein fighters, as he said Iraq's former leader was popular in Sudan.

"The [US-governing coalition in Iraq] promised to set free those detainees, or at least some of them, soon," Mr Ismail was quoted as saying by the official Al-Anbaa newspaper.

Osama Bin Laden lived in Sudan in the 1990s but since the 9/11 attacks on the United States, Sudan has been co-operating with its war on terror.