Six of the 11 Guantanamo Bay prisoners so far given a chance to challenge their detention have shunned the hearings, which the US military in any case does not expect will lead to many inmates being freed.

Panels of three military officers this week began reviewing the status of detainees from the Afghan war who have been held at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without trial for 2 and a half years.

Five prisoners participated in their hearings but six refused, including a 25-year-old Iranian whose hearing was attended by journalists on Friday.

Unclassified material summarized at the 13-minute session portrayed the Iranian as a Taliban fighter conscripted and trained by the Islamic fundamentalist group to use an AK-47 assault rifle.

The summary said he spent more than two weeks fighting US and allied forces in Afghanistan before his capture by the Northern Alliance, a group of Afghan militias that fought with US forces to oust the Taliban government that protected al-Qaeda, the summary said.