From Alphonso Van Marsh
CNN
GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba (CNN) -- U.S. military officials said Thursday a rolling hunger strike by al Qaeda and Taliban fighters detained at the U.S. naval base in Cuba is winding down, and they will no longer keep track of who is not eating.
"We still have three individuals who are hard-core. While they are eating, they are fasting," said Brig. Gen. Michael Lehnert, commanding officer of U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "All detainees are drinking. All detainees have eaten meals."
Although many of the 300 detainees in the base's Camp X-Ray detention center have taken part in the hunger strike that began February 27, few had been skipping more than one of their three meals a day. A Guantanamo Bay spokesman said Thursday that all detainees had eaten two or three meals in the past five days.
At one point, 194 detainees skipped at least one meal a day. In the past week, according to Lehnert, a little over a dozen detainees had been skipping one meal a day.
The three detainees who had been completely fasting for some 14 days were forcefully given intravenous fluids and are now eating at least twice a day, officials said.
Because almost every detainee was eating at least two meals a day, with various ones refusing each of the day's meals, the military has been reluctant to call the refusals to eat a hunger strike.
Military officials said Thursday they have stopped tracking which detainees are opting not to eat, saying their time could be better used on other endeavors.
The refusals to eat began as a protest over guards interrupting a detainee's prayers to enforce a camp rule of fashioning a homemade turban. That rule has now been revoked. Lehnert said Thursday the detainees are protesting the fact that they don't know what is to happen to them.
Monday, an unidentified detainee held in one of Camp X-Ray's open-air chain-link fence cells yelled to a group of passing journalists that he had been on a hunger strike for 14 days and that detainees had no legal rights.
There is no way for journalists to independently confirm detainee eating habits.
The U.S. military says meals served to detainees are "halal," or religiously appropriate for Muslims. Meal items include oatmeal, vegetarian stew, rice and red beans, water, fruits, granola bars, garlic bagel chips, barbecue-flavor sunflower seeds, Fruit Loops cereal and roasted peanuts.
