Path to Bin Laden May Lie Behind Bars
USA TODAY
January 08, 2002
WASHINGTON -- The two biggest fish in the war on terrorism, Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mohammed Omar, remain on the loose.
But since the military operation in Afghanistan began three months ago, the United States has netted hundreds of less-important al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Those prisoners, along with abandoned documents and computer hard drives, have provided intelligence that has already helped dismantle a terrorist network in Southeast Asia, officials say.
A U.S. military official said Monday that information gathered in Afghanistan, some of it from prisoners, helped break up a network of militants in Singapore who had been planning to blow up the U.S. Embassy and American businesses there. Singapore said Monday that it had arrested 15 people with suspected ties to al-Qaeda.
The U.S. military is holding 346 al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners in Afghanistan and aboard the USS Bataan amphibious assault ship in the Arabian Sea. The prisoners include natives of more than 20 countries. The Pentagon has refused to identify them, except for John Walker Lindh, a 20-year-old American who could face the death penalty if convicted on charges of ''aiding the enemy.''
Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem, a Pentagon spokesman, declined to say how many senior al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders were in U.S. hands. ''We know senior leadership is being detained. We know senior leadership has been killed. And we know senior leadership is not yet in custody,'' he said Monday.
But reports from Afghan and senior U.S. officials indicate that U.S. troops are holding:
* Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a Libyan who was a top al-Qaeda training-camp leader and is the most senior member of the terrorist network captured so far. The high-ranking paramilitary trainer was nabbed by Pakistani officials as he tried to flee Afghanistan.
* Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan and the highest-ranking member of the former Afghan regime in custody. The public face of the Taliban, Zaeef had sought -- and was denied -- asylum in Pakistan.
* Mullah Fazel Mazloom, the Taliban army's chief of staff. Northern Alliance troops captured him in November. The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, also lists another top Taliban leader, Noorullah Nori, as a prisoner.
* Abdul Aziz, a Saudi official with the Wafa relief group, an Islamic charity believed to have funneled money to al-Qaeda.
* Abu Faisal, a senior al-Qaeda leader detained in December.
* David Hicks, an Australian Taliban fighter who trained in Pakistan and also fought alongside Muslims in Kosovo and Kashmir.
The ''battlefield detainees,'' as the Pentagon calls them, are just a small percentage of the 5,000 to 6,000 prisoners in Afghanistan. Most are being held by the Northern Alliance and southern tribal groups; about 3,000 are in a prison in the northern town of Shebarghan. Hundreds more are being held in Pakistan.
Pentagon officials said they aren't interested in taking custody of low-ranking Taliban members. They want only senior al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders with information that could lead to Omar, bin Laden or other terrorists.
Many have been or are being interrogated by CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, FBI and Army officials. A Defense official said most interrogations last five to 10 minutes if the subject is a foot soldier. More senior or well-connected prisoners might be interviewed multiple times, for several hours.
Some have cooperated with U.S. officials, possibly after receiving ''incentives'' to tell what they know, but others have been tight-lipped with interrogators.
It's unlikely that every prisoner in U.S. custody will go before a military tribunal or other court on charges of war crimes or acts of terrorism, analysts say. Many are being held more for what they know than for what they've done.
That raises concerns among human rights groups that prisoners who are released may be forcibly repatriated to their home countries, where they could face torture or death.
Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, said officials haven't decided what will be done with detainees who are not charged with crimes or those who seek asylum in the United States.
An initial group of up to 100 prisoners is expected to leave this week for the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where a maximum-security detention center is being built. The Pentagon has called up 1,500 military police, engineers, medical personnel and other troops to transport, guard and feed them.
The prisoners likely will be flown to Cuba aboard military transports such as the C-17 or the even bigger C-5. Both can be refueled in the air, which eliminates the need for risky pit stops.
A Defense official said the prisoners will be shackled and possibly hooded in order to control them. The aim is to avoid a rebellion like the one that left hundreds dead in November at a prison in Mazar-e-Sharif. Military police assigned to transport the prisoners are receiving special training.
Guantanamo is ''well-suited'' to the task, says Ivo Daalder, a foreign policy analyst at the Brookings Institution. Covering 45 square miles on the southern end of Cuba, it has been a U.S. base since Marines landed there in 1898 during the Spanish-American War. Long a thorn in the side of Cuban President Fidel Castro, the base served in the mid-1990s as a refugee camp for more than 50,000 Cubans and Haitians awaiting asylum.
Now it is about to become the temporary home of as many as 2,000 Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners, and possibly the military tribunals that will try some of them.
''Once they are on U.S. territory, their tongues are more likely to be loosened,'' Daalder says. ''Their willingness to cooperate will be larger in order to save their hides.''
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