Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Anonymous Sources Commenting on Undisclosed Locations
Israel's Haaretz today featured a story that informs my previous post about the recent report by Human Rights Watch on the use of Latin American-style disappearances in the prosecution of the so-called war on terror. Haaretz cites anonymous "international intelligence sources" who claim the CIA runs a top-secret interrogation facility in Jordan and further asserts that this is the place where the disappeared high-level al Qaeda members documented in Human Rights Watch's report are detained.
According to the above article, Human Right Watch claimed the facility is "so secret that U.S. President George Bush asked the CIA heads not to report it to him". One wonders who leaked that it is located in Jordan and why?
The CIA's prisoners at the facility in Jordan include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, considered Al-Qaida's head of operations and number three in the Al-Qaida hierarchy after Osama bin Laden and Aiman al-Zawahiri, who have eluded capture. Mohammed, of Kuwaiti origin, was captured in a safe house in Pakistan in 2002, along with the Yemeni Ramzi bin al-Shibh, considered a close bin Laden associate who was kept from being one of the 9/11 pilots because he was denied a U.S. visa. The two men were interrogated for awhile in Pakistan by Pakistanis and Americans and later flown to the undisclosed facility.
Also at the secret facility are Abu Zubaydah, described as Al-Qaida's "recruitment officer," and Riduan Isamuddin, also known as Hambali, who was captured in Thailand a year ago. The Indonesian Hambali was the only non-Arab Muslim participant in Al-Qaida's supreme military council. He served as the operations chief for Jemaah Islamiya, which was behind attacks in the Philippines before 9/11 and for the attack on the Bali night club in October 2002 that killed over 200 people.
Haaretz was unable to obtain the identities of the other detainees in Jordan.
The 46-page Human Rights Watch report levels harsh criticism at the U.S. administration for using "undisclosed locations" and "disappearing" prisoners. The report charges that the U.S. thereby is in breach of all international conventions, including the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war, by refusing prisoners access to the Red Cross or their families.
The report contends that American operatives detained Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's children to serve as "hostages" through which to pressure their father into cooperating.
The prisoners were subjected to severe torture, the report states.
According to the above article, Human Right Watch claimed the facility is "so secret that U.S. President George Bush asked the CIA heads not to report it to him". One wonders who leaked that it is located in Jordan and why?
