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MIAMI, Dec 13 (Reuters) - The U.S. military released 15 captives from the Guantanamo detention camp, putting the prisoner population below 300 for the first time in more than five years.

Thirteen prisoners were sent home to Afghanistan and two were returned to Sudan, the military said in a statement late on Wednesday.

"There are approximately 290 detainees currently at Guantanamo," it said.

The United States has drawn intense international criticism for holding foreign captives for years without charge at its naval base in southeast Cuba.

The Bush administration says the Guantanamo captives are terrorists who threaten the United States and its allies. At the same time, it has released 485 of them since the camp opened in January 2002, sending more than 100 home this year.

The United States has agreed to send to Britain three British residents held at Guantanamo, and the military said about 70 other captives have been designated as eligible for transfer or release through annual reviews of the threat they pose and the intelligence they offer.

The latest release marked the first time the prisoner population dipped below 300 since the early days of the detention operation, when captives were held in crude outdoor cages at a complex called "Camp X-Ray." Most of those remaining are held in modern steel-and-concrete buildings modeled after prisons in the United States. (Reporting by Jane Sutton, editing by Doina Chiacu)

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