GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, March 4 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - FBI Director Robert Mueller said that samples of genetic material taken from suspected Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters detained in Afghanistan will help identify them.

"For a number of detainees in Afghanistan, we do not have specific information as to their backgrounds or even their true names," Mueller said. "We want to be able to identify them and DNA swabbing -- and having the capability of reviewing DNA samples -- will give us that capacity in the future," he added.

Mueller added that DNA samples would also be collected from detainees already at Guantanamo.

"That has been accomplished," he said Sunday, March 3, during a visit to the detention center at the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo, dubbed Camp X-Ray.

The New York Times reported Sunday that U.S. authorities were considering creating a genetic databank of terrorism suspects' DNA out of frustration at being unable to identify many of the suspects.

Major Ralph Mills, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida, told Agence France Presse (AFP) that officials were taking "finger prick" samples from detainees in Afghanistan.

"This is part of the procedure in Kandahar," he said, declining to tell when the practice began.

Officials told the New York Times that a DNA database could help in tracking terror suspects in the future and could play a role in some current investigations.

They said that would be particularly important because they now believed that many of the detainees would have to be released before the government was certain who they are, the paper added.

The information could also play a role in some current investigations, including the case of Richard Reid, who has been accused of allegedly trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight with explosives hidden in his shoes. Investigators said the DNA might help them trace the source of hairs found in Reid's shoes and possibly identify an accomplice, the paper said.

The DNA database has been proposed by officials at the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and is being reviewed at the Justice Department.

Congressional approval would be required to expand a national DNA Index System and would permit the FBI to take DNA samples from terrorism suspects and keep the information in computer files.

The proposal is likely to raise concerns among civil liberties groups that have fought attempts to expand the use of DNA profiling, as well as from advocates for the detainees and officials from some countries who have objected to U.S. treatment of the prisoners.

The United States is also seeking DNA samples from relatives of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, which could be used to determine whether he was among three people killed in a February 4 missile strike in eastern Afghanistan, a senior defense official said earlier on Wednesday, February 27.

Pieces of flesh and bone were collected by U.S. troops from the site and flown back to the United States for DNA analysis.

Even before the DNA proposal, civil rights groups had objected to the treatment of the prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have said that conditions there are inhumane because the men are being kept in 8 foot by 8 foot chain-link cages topped with corrugated metal. Other rights advocates have said the prisoners are being denied due process.

Civil liberties groups have strenuously opposed efforts in several states to expand the use of DNA profiling to people who have not been convicted of crimes. Law enforcement officials said they had no plans to sample the DNA of the hundreds of detainees who have been held in the United States after September 11 because they know such a proposal would encounter roadblocks.

Federal law permits DNA profiling only of convicted sex offenders and other violent felons, of biological material found at crime scenes and of evidence obtained in missing person cases. The proposal would create a new category of FBI DNA profiling.

Since Wednesday, about 200 detainees participated in a hunger strike, provoked by an incident Tuesday, February 26, in which guards took off a prisoner’s turban while he was praying. He had fashioned it from a bedsheet in what was considered a violation of a camp rule to prevent detainees from concealing contraband.