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| Terror Networks |
| Who’s Who at Gitmo |
| 2004-02-04 |
| At least 160 of the 650 detainees acknowledged by the Pentagon being held at the United States military base at Guantanamo, Cuba -- almost a quarter of the total -- are from Saudi Arabia, a special UPI survey can reveal. In UPI’s groundbreaking and detailed breakdown of the nationalities of the detainees, some arrested far from the 2001 battlefield of Afghanistan, the other top nationalities being held are Yemen with 85, Pakistan with 82, Jordan and Egypt, each with 30. Afghans are the fourth largest nationality with 80 detainees, according to the detailed UPI survey that has now for the first time established the homelands of 95 percent of the total number of prisoners. One member of the Bahraini royal family is among those detained, according to his lawyer Najeeb al-Nauimi of Doha, Qatar, who was Qatar’s 1995-97 justice minister and has power of attorney from the parents of about 70 prisoners. Jordan, a close ally of the U.S. in its war on terror, has 30 of its citizens detained in Camp Delta, as does Egypt. Jordan has worked closely with the U.S. in the initial processing of prisoners, providing both interrogators and interpreters. Morocco, site of an al-Qaida attack on a synagogue in April 2002 that killed 21 people, has 18 of its nationals in Guantanamo. Algeria, currently in the throes of a violent conflict between Islamists and the government, has 19 prisoners in Camp Delta, six of whom were arrested in Sarajevo. Kuwait, liberated from Saddam Hussein by Operation Desert Storm in 1991 has 12 citizens in Guantanamo; the Kuwaiti government insists that all of its citizen were involved in charity and relief work. China also has at least 12 its citizens in Guantanamo, although they are all identified as ethnic Uighurs rather than Han Chinese. Next on the list are Tajikistan and Turkey with 11 citizens each. Tajikistan fought a bloody civil war in the aftermath of the collapse of communism in 1991 and fundamentalists maintain a strong presence there. Turkey last November was subjected to al-Qaida bombing attacks in Istanbul, which killed 62 people. Nine British citizens of Muslim background are in Guantanamo; they have proven to be a political liability for Prime Minister Tony Blair, as calls have been made in Parliament for their repatriation. Both Tunisia and Russia have eight of their nationals at Camp Delta; a Russian embassy spokesman was careful to point out however that the eight Russian citizens are not ethnic Russians. Rustam Akmerov, Ravil Gumarov, Timur Ishmuradov, Shamil Khadzhiev (originally identified as Almaz Sharipov), Rasul Kudaev, Ravil Mingazov, Ruslan Odigov and Airat Vakhitov are members of Russia’s Muslim community. The Russian embassy nonetheless is quietly pursuing negotiations with Washington to extradite its citizens. France and Bahrain both have seven each of their nationals at Gauntanamo. Highlighting the problems of identification, France only recently discovered its seventh national at Camp Delta. The Bahraini detainees include a member of the royal family. Kazakhstan has been quietly lobbying Washington for the return of its citizens, as have Australia (2) and Canada (2.) Australian David Hicks is one of the most high profile prisoners in Camp Delta; a convert to Islam, Hicks fought as a jihadi in the Balkans before shipping out to Afghanistan. There are reportedly at least two Chechens, two Uzbeks and two Syrians in Camp Delta. The Syrian detainees especially interest U.S. intelligence, as one of the four workers at Camp Delta under investigation for possibly aiding the prisoners, Air Force translator Senior Airman Ahmad al-Halabi is accused of trying to pass messages from the prisoners to Syria. There are also two Georgian and two Sudanese nationals in Guantanamo. Bangladesh, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Iraq, Kenya, Libya, Mauritania, Qatar, Spain and Sweden all have a single citizen in Camp Delta. |
| Posted by:Chuck Simmins |
| #3 My, my, quite a little UN there, isn't there? |
| Posted by: Anonymous2U 2004-2-4 11:47:16 PM |
| #2 A.P. You mean kind of a prisoner exchange market? I imagine most of them are simply cannon fodder and not worth much intel. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-2-4 10:31:49 PM |
| #1 The eight Russian detainees in Gitmo should be pumped for intel, then handed back to the Russian govt, who I am sure knows what to do with them. I do not know the value of the Chinese prisoners, but the Chinese would also know what to do with their Uighurs. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-2-4 8:07:26 PM |