CAIRO, September 25 (IslamOnline.net) - A prominent Algerian lawmaker said a number of Americans guarding the 660 alleged Al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees being held by the United States in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have embraced Islam.

Hassan Aribi, who also chairs his country’s committee on the Guantanamo issue, mediated with Pentagon officials the release of 18 detainees from the heavily-guarded detention camp.

He said the negotiations, made in Washington before the beginning of the Iraq war, resulted in the release of eight Algerians and ten other detainees, from several nationalities.

"They told me that the American guards were very sympathetic with them to the extent of buying the detainees’ needs of their pocket money," the Algerian lawmaker told a seminar in Cairo.

He asserted that the freed detainees confirmed to him that some of their American guards have converted to Islam as a result of daily interaction with Muslim prisoners for the past two years.

The Algerian legislator fell short of saying how many of the American guards had accepted Islam.

Aribi appealed to Arab governments to immediately act for the release of their citizens, held without charges in Guantanamo.

He asserted that any endeavor by Arab governments in this respect would yield positive fruits, lamenting the absence of any such official effort.

He pledged that his committee would pursue efforts for the release of other detainees, no matter what it takes.

The Algerian lawmaker asserted that 90 percent of those held in Guantanamo had no relation whatsoever with Al-Qeada or Taliban.

"They were working with humanitarian relief agencies and were only arrested as part of an American campaign against possible suspects," Aribi said.

They were sent to the maximum-security facility over the objections of intelligence officers in Afghanistan who had recommended their release, it quoted military sources with direct knowledge of the matter as saying.

At least 59 detainees, nearly 10% of the prison population at the U.S. Navy base were deemed to be of no intelligence value after repeated interrogations in Afghanistan, it said.