Criminals made into terrorists
Radicals at prison instilled anti-U.S. passion in others
Tuesday, June 17, 2008 3:08 AM
By Tom Lasseter
McClatchy Newspapers
GARDEZ, Afghanistan -- Mohammed Naim Farouq was a thug in the lawless Zormat district of eastern Afghanistan. He ran a kidnapping and extortion racket, and he controlled his turf with a band of gunmen.
U.S. troops detained him in 2002, although he had no clear ties to the Taliban or al-Qaida. By the time Farouq was released from Guantanamo, however -- after more than 12 months of what he described as abuse at the hands of American soldiers -- he'd made connections to high-level militants.
In fact, he'd become a Taliban leader. When the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency released a stack of 20 "most wanted" playing cards in 2006 identifying militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Farouq was in the deck.
A McClatchy Newspapers investigation found that instead of confining terrorists, Guantanamo often produced more of them by rounding up common criminals, conscripts, low-level foot soldiers and men with no allegiance to radical Islam and then housing them in cells next to radical Islamists.
Soldiers, guards or interrogators at the U.S. bases at Bagram or Kandahar in Afghanistan had abused many of the detainees, and they arrived at Guantanamo enraged at America.
The Taliban and al-Qaida leaders in the cells around them were ready to preach their firebrand interpretation of Islam and the need to wage jihad -- Islamic holy war -- against the West. Guantanamo became a school for jihad, complete with elders who issued fatwas -- binding religious instructions -- to the other detainees.
Rear Adm. Mark H. Buzby, until recently the commanding officer at Guantanamo, said senior militant leaders gained influence and control in his prison.
"We have that full range of (Taliban and al-Qaida) leadership here, why would they not continue to be functional as an organization?" he asked.
In a classified 2005 review of 35 detainees released from Guantanamo, Pakistani police intelligence concluded that the men -- the majority of whom had been subjected to "severe mental and physical torture," according to the report -- had "extreme feelings of resentment and hatred against USA."
"A lot of our friends are working against the Americans now, because if you torture someone without any reason, what do you expect?" said Issa Khan, a Pakistani former detainee. "Many people who were in Guantanamo are now working with the Taliban."
In interviews, former U.S. Defense Department officials acknowledged the problem, but none of them would speak about it openly.
The Pentagon official in charge of detainee affairs, Sandra Hodgkinson, declined interview requests.
However, dozens of former detainees, many of whom were reluctant to talk for fear of being branded as spies by the militants, described a network that allowed Islamist radicals to gain power:
? Militants recruited new detainees by offering to help them memorize the Quran and study Arabic. They conducted the lessons, infused with firebrand theology, between the mesh walls of cells, from the other side of a fence during exercise time or, in lower-security blocks, during group meetings.
? Taliban and al-Qaida leaders appointed cellblock leaders. When there was a problem with the guards, such as allegations of Quran abuse or rough searches of detainees, these "local" leaders reported up their chains of command whether the men in their block had fought back with hunger strikes or by throwing cups of urine and feces at guards. The senior leaders then decided whether to call for large-scale hunger strikes or other protests.
? Al-Qaida and Taliban leaders at Guantanamo issued rulings that governed detainees' behavior. Shaking hands with female guards was forbidden, men should pray five times a day, and talking with U.S. soldiers was discouraged.
The recruiting and organizing don't end at Guantanamo. After detainees are released, they're visited by militants who try to cement the prison relationships.
"When I was released, they (Taliban officials) told me to come join them, to fight," said Alif Khan, an Afghan former detainee interviewed in Kabul. "They told me I should move to Waziristan," a Taliban hotbed in Pakistan.
American officials tried to stop detainees from turning Guantanamo into what some former U.S. officials have since called an "American madrassa" -- an Islamic religious school -- but some of their efforts backfired.
Abdul Zuhoor, an Afghan detainee, said he remembers senior Taliban and Arab detainees meeting in the exercise yard.
In June 2006, Zuhoor said, a Taliban member at Guantanamo bragged to him that there soon would be three "martyrs."
"The Arabs and some Taliban sat together and issued a verdict," he said. "Three of the men volunteered to kill themselves to get more freedom for the other detainees."
The next morning, Zuhoor said, the news spread across Guantanamo: Three Arabs had committed suicide.
