WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. military is holding five U.S. citizens suspected of insurgent activities in Iraq, a Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday. They were captured separately and don't appear to have ties to one another, spokesman Bryan Whitman said. He declined to identify them, citing a Pentagon policy that prohibits identification of detainees.
Three of those being detained are Iraqi-Americans; another is an Iranian-American; the fifth is a Jordanian-American, Whitman said. The three Iraqi-Americans were captured in April, May and June, officials said. The Iranian-American was captured May 17, one official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the cases.
Additional: The Jordanian-American was captured in a raid late last year and is suspected of high-level ties to Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist and leading al-Qaida ally in Iraq. Officials announced his capture in March. All five are in custody at one of the three U.S.-run prisons in Iraq — Abu Ghraib, Camp Bucca or Camp Cropper, Whitman said, declining to provide their precise location. The International Committee of the Red Cross has had access to all five prisoners, Whitman said. A panel of three U.S. officers rules on whether each prisoner is properly held; that has already taken place for the Jordanian-American. Whitman did not say whether the three Iraqi-Americans or the Iranian-American have been through this process.
One of the Iraqi-Americans allegedly had knowledge of planning for an attack, and another was possibly involved in a kidnapping. The third was "engaged in suspicious activity," Whitman said, declining to be more specific. Whitman said the Iranian-American was captured with several dozen washing machine timers in his car - items that can be used as components in bombs. | Obviously he is just an innocent traveling washing machine repairman, an unjustly accused victim of profiling. Or maybe, not: |
LOS ANGELES (AP) - An Iranian-born U.S. citizen who also is a Navy veteran is being held in Iraq by American forces after security officials in Baghdad reported finding a common component for improvised bombs in his taxi, according to his family. Relatives of Cyrus Kar, an aspiring filmmaker who lives in Los Angeles, said they plan to sue the government to gain his release. They say he has been cleared and there is no legal authority for his detention. | Ah, the missing "film-maker". I wondered when he'd turn up. |
His family says Kar, 44, was in Iraq to film scenes for a documentary on King Cyrus the Great, founder of Persia, when he was arrested at a checkpoint in Baghdad in mid-May. He also had filmed in Iran, Tajikistan, Turkey and Afghanistan and consulted with scholars, they said. | Yes, I'll just bet he did. |
They said he called them on May 24 and said he had been detained because of a misunderstanding involving a taxi driver who had been driving Kar and his cameraman around Baghdad. They last heard from him on June 28. Pentagon officials would not confirm they were holding Kar, citing a policy that prohibits the release of the identities of detainees. However, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman confirmed Wednesday that an Iranian-American is in custody in Iraq. He was captured with several dozen washing machine timers in his car - items that can be used as components in bombs, Whitman said. A defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case, said he was captured on May 17.
Four other people - three Iraqi-Americans and a Jordanian-American - with U.S. citizenship are in custody in Iraq in connection with suspected insurgent activities, Whitman said. All have gone, or will go, before a three-officer panel that determines whether they are properly held, Whitman said. No decision has been made whether the U.S. or Iraqi government will ultimately handle their cases, Whitman said.
Kar's relatives told the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times that FBI Agent John D. Wilson in Los Angeles told them weeks ago that Kar's story had checked out, that he had passed a polygraph test and that he had been cleared of any charges. "He's cleared," one of Kar's aunts, Parvin Modarress, quoted Wilson as saying, according to The New York Times. Wilson told the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday that he had met the women but would not elaborate.
Kar's relatives plan to file a lawsuit challenging Kar's continued detention. The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and other civil liberties lawyers are representing Kar. "Mr. Kar is now imprisoned by the United States military in Iraq without the slightest hint of legal authority," said Mark D. Rosenbaum, the ACLU's Southern California legal director. "Saddam Hussein has had more due process than Cyrus Kar," Rosenbaum said. Although Kar was born in Iran, he spent most of his childhood in California, Utah and Washington state, and served several years in the Navy, the newspapers said. |