U.S. forces are transferring another 30 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban detainees from Afghanistan to a U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The 30, who departed from a U.S. base at Kandahar airport in Afghanistan at 12:35 p.m. ET, which was evening in Afghanistan, will join 20 prisoners who arrived Friday at the Cuba detention center, known as "Camp X-Ray." The trip is expected to take about 27 hours, including a refueling stop.

The prisoners, shackled and with white caps covering their faces, shuffled in the darkness into a C-17 transport plane, with two U.S. soldiers flanking each of the 30 detainees, The Associated Press reported.

U.S. officials have suggested they will be transferring hundreds of prisoners to the Cuba base. U.S. officials hope to build 220 temporary cells there, and then, ultimately, 2,000 permanent ones.

Officials told The Associated Press 464 detainees are in U.S. custody -- 413 in Afghanistan, 20 in Cuba, 30 in transit, and John Walker, an American captured in November with Taliban and al Qaeda fighters, aboard an American warship.

Bombing Continues

The U.S. may be moving prisoners from Afghanistan to Cuba, and an interim Afghan government may be consolidating control, but the bombing war is not over in Afghanistan.

U.S. warplanes continue to bomb suspected al Qaeda and Taliban hideouts in eastern Afghanistan, and a small number of U.S. special forces continue to comb the area's rugged landscape for enemy holdouts, according to wire reports.

Today, U.S. warplanes again bombed the Zawar Kili region about 20 miles southwest of Khost, which has been under repeated attack in recent days, Pentagon officials told The Associated Press.

The region, near the border with Pakistan, contains cave complexes, tunnels and former suspected al Qaeda training facilities where intelligence suggested al Qaeda forces were regrouping in recent weeks after a steady succession of military defeats, wire services reported.

The Associated Press reported that a small group of U.S. special forces holed up overnight into Saturday at a technical school in Khost declined a request for an interview.

However, Bacha Khan, the regional governor, told the AP the special forces were part of a strike force consisting of about 20 men, that they had arrested four of his followers on suspected Taliban or al Qaeda links, and were looking for the killer of Sgt 1st Class Nathan Chapman, a Green Beret killed Jan. 4 in an ambush in the area.

Settling In

Since arriving in Cuba Friday, 20 Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners from Afghanistan -- considered among the greatest security risks of hundreds under U.S. control in and near Afghanistan -- have been settling into a spartan routine at "Camp X-Ray," officials said.

Upon arriving, the prisoners were clad in orange jumpsuits, fingerprinted, photographed and put in their outdoor, six-by-eight-foot cells with chain-link walls and metal roofs. They spent their first night peacefully Friday into Saturday, sleeping on foam rubber mats under the illumination of halogen floodlights, U.S. officials said. Some of the prisoners were seen praying in their cells before retiring.

Reporters at the base were not allowed to see the prisoners, who were set Saturday to begin a daily routine -- including showers, meals conforming with Islamic dietary restrictions and short walks outside their cells with military escorts and their hands bound. They were to be given korans, if they wanted them, to help pass the time at a base secured by barbed wire and watchtowers. They also would receive a washcloth, toothpaste, a toothbrush, soap, shampoo and two bath towels -- one of which could be used as a prayer mat.

The treatment of the prisoners has raised alarm among human rights organizations. The international human rights group Amnesty International called for "justice, not revenge" and characterized the holding cells as "cages." The Defense Department's refusal to call its captives "prisoners of war," but rather "detainees" and "unlawful combatants," has also caused consternation among some human rights activists. They fear such wording is a precursor to military tribunals, and will allow prosecutors to skirt protections of due process.

"The decision when you have a captured fighter as to who is a prisoner of war, who is an unlawful combatant, has to be made by a competent tribunal," said Jamie Fellner of the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch. "That's under the laws of war, the Geneva Convention. That's how that distinction gets made. It doesn't get made by some U.S. officer or the Secretary of Defense."

Marines' Bodies Found

In other developments:

U.S. officials said American forces have recovered the bodies of six of seven U.S. Marines killed this week in a plane crash in the mountains of Pakistan. The bodies were sent to a U.S. base in Shamsi, Pakistan and on to another U.S. base in Germany, officials said. They were expected to reach their ultimate destination, Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, later today or Monday. The Marines were killed Wednesday when their KC-130 refueling tanker crashed into a mountain and exploded near the Shamsi base, in southwestern Pakistan. Investigators continue to search for the remaining Marine and the cause of the crash, which is not believed to have been caused by enemy fire.

Britain's Foreign Office said Saturday it was informed by American officials that a British citizen is among the first 20 war on terror detainees transferred to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. British officials were trying to verify the report and determine the prisoner's identity. "If a Briton is being held, clearly that Briton should be looked after by our consulate authorities," Donald Anderson, chairman of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee, told the BBC on Saturday. "And if there is a serious danger of execution, clearly we will have to make appropriate representations to the U.S. authorities."

ABCNEWS' Jim Sciutto in Washington contributed to this report.

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