WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- The U.S. military authorities have taken tougher measures to force-feed detainees engaged in hunger strikes at the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, The New York Times reported Thursday.

    The measures were taken after U.S. officials concluded that some of the hunger strikers were determined to commit suicide to protest their indefinite confinement, according to the report.

    In recent weeks, Guantanamo guards have begun strapping recalcitrant detainees into "restraint chairs," sometimes for hours a day, to feed them through tubes and prevent them from deliberately vomiting afterward.

    Detainees who refuse to eat have also been placed in isolation for extended periods in what the officials said was an effort to keep them from being encouraged by other hunger strikers.

    The measures appear to have had drastic effects. The chief military spokesman at Guantanamo, Lt. Col. Jeremy M. Martin, said that the number of detainees on hunger strike had dropped to 4 from 84 at the end of December.

    Some U.S. officials said the new actions reflected concern at Guantanamo and the Pentagon that the protests are becoming difficult to control and that the death of one or more prisoners could intensify international criticism of the detention center.

    Lawyers of the detainees criticized the latest measures, particularly the use of the restraint chair, as abusive.

    "It is clear that the government has ended the hunger strike through the use of force and through the most brutal and inhumane types of treatment," said Thomas B. Wilner, a Washington-based lawyer who visited six Kuwaiti detainees at Guantanamo last week.

    About 500 detainees are still being held at Guantanamo, most of whom were captured in the US-led war in Afghanistan in 2001. Enditem