RIYADH -- Saudi Arabia has dispatched a team of experts to inspect the conditions of over 100 of its nationals detained in the U.S. Guantanamo Base in Cuba after receiving a go ahead from Washington, a newspaper said Saturday.

The team, composed of officials from the interior and foreign ministries, left the kingdom on Friday, an Interior Ministry source said, quoted in the ***Al-Watan ***daily.

The source declined to say whether the team would press for the repatriation of the detainees, adding that this might happen only after the team reports back to Riyadh, AFP reported.

More than 560 suspected Taleban and Al-Qaeda fighters, nationals of over 30 countries, are being held in Guantanamo, where they were transferred from Afghanistan or Pakistan following the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz said in January there were more than 100 Saudis detained in Guantanamo. He requested their repatriation to interrogate them in the kingdom.

He later suggested that Riyadh would, if allowed, send a commission of inquiry to Guantanamo to interrogate them there.

U.S. authorities have refused to give the Guantanamo detainees prisoner of war status, as set out under the Geneva conventions, and are reserving the right to try them before secret U.S. military tribunals that have the power to impose the death penalty. So far, none of them have been charged with any crime.

The United States launched a military offensive against Afghanistan in October in retaliation for September's attacks, which it blamed on Saudi-born Afghan-based dissident Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda network.