US official defends Afghan wait

Janet Napolitano said Mr Obama was carefully weighing up his options

The US Homeland Security secretary has defended the time it is taking for President Obama to decide whether to send extra troops to Afghanistan.

Janet Napolitano is meeting British ministers in London to discuss counter-terrorism and cyber-security.

She told the BBC there was a direct link between the Afghanistan conflict and the terror threat in the US.

She said the decision facing Mr Obama "deserves full consideration and that is what the president is engaged in".

Ms Napolitano also confirmed that the Obama administration was working towards meeting the 22 January deadline set by the president for closing the Guantanamo Bay prison.

She described US politicians who refused to accept the detainees as Nimbys - "not in my back yard".

Public safety

And she said the terrorist suspects would be treated like any other maximum security inmates.

She told the BBC: "The executive order is still the order under which we are working, which has that deadline [22 January].

"Some countries have agreed to take some of the detainees, determinations are being made as to which ones should be tried within the United States.

"This is a very careful process, it's going detainee by detainee by detainee to ascertain which is the best place to put them and to make sure that wherever they are placed, the public safety interests come first."