Identification of ex-Guantanamo Suicide Bomber Unleashes Pentagon Propaganda

Rather horribly, it seems, a former Guantánamo prisoner, Abdullah al-Ajmi, a Kuwaiti who was repatriated in November 2005 and who later married and had a child, blew himself up as a suicide bomber in Mosul, Iraq, last month. According to the US military, al-Ajmi was one of three suicide bombers responsible for killing seven members of the Iraqi security forces on April 26.

An article in the Washington Post explained how al-Ajmi had recorded a martyrdom tape before his mission, which was translated by the US-based SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist websites. On the audiotape, al-Ajmi apparently condemned conditions at Guantánamo as "deplorable," and stated, "Whoever can join them and execute a suicide operation, let him do so. By God, it will be a mortal blow. The Americans complain much about it. By God, in Guantánamo, all their talk was about explosives and whether you make explosives. It is as if explosives were hell to them."

This is disturbing news, of course, although it does not follow that al-Ajmi's release, and his subsequent actions, demonstrate that the administration's post-9/11 anti-terror policies -- abrogating from the Geneva Conventions and holding men without charge or trial in an offshore prison and interrogation center -- are justified.

If al-Ajmi was a threat to the United States, he should either have been held as a Prisoner of War, protected by the Geneva Conventions, or prosecuted in a recognized court of law as a criminal. Instead, his imprisonment at Guantánamo involved "evidence" compiled by unnamed interrogators and other military personnel that was so far from the standards demanded by any acceptable judicial process that, on his return to Kuwait, he was acquitted of the charges against him -- primarily, that he fought with the Taliban against US forces in Afghanistan -- and set free.

At his trial, his lawyer, Ayedh al-Azemi, told the court that transcripts of interrogations conducted in Guantánamo by US officers should not be admissible as evidence, because they "do not bear signatures of the US officers nor the defendants and thus should not be admissible as legal evidence by the court." He added that the transcripts were "not a proper investigation" but "simple reports that included neither questions nor answers."

In Guantánamo, al-Ajmi, a lance corporal in the Kuwaiti army, had specifically denied fighting with the Taliban, saying that he had taken a leave of absence from the army in order to study in Pakistan with Jamaat-al-Tablighi, a conservative but apolitical proselytizing organization that has millions of members worldwide. He insisted that he had only confessed to fighting with the Taliban because of the circumstances in which he was held and interrogated.

"These statements were all said under pressure and threats," he said. "I couldn't take it. I couldn't bear the threats and the suffering so I started saying things. When every detainee is captured they tell him that he is either Taliban or al-Qaeda and that is it. I couldn't bear the suffering and the threatening and the pressure so I had to say I was from [the] Taliban."

The question remains, therefore, whether al-Ajmi was lying in Guantánamo -- which is, of course, a possibility -- or whether the abuse he suffered for four years in US custody radicalized him and led to his final manifestation as a suicide bomber. The clues provide mixed messages. In Guantánamo, the authorities certainly regarded him as a threat, noting that his behavior had been so "aggressive and non-compliant" that he had "resided in the disciplinary blocks throughout his detention," but there appears to be no way of knowing if he was "aggressive and non-compliant" because he was a sworn militant or because he was profoundly angered by his experiences in US custody.

Speaking to the Washington Post, US lawyer Thomas Wilner, who represented al-Ajmi and several other former Kuwaiti prisoners, recalled al-Ajmi's anger and despair. He explained that his client was "young and not well educated, and that he appeared deeply affected by his incarceration" at Guantánamo. He said that during five meetings in 2005 al-Ajmi had told him that he had been "badly abused after his capture in Afghanistan and later at Guantánamo, at one point coming to a meeting with a broken arm [he] said he sustained in a scuffle with guards." Wilner added that over the course of his visits, al-Ajmi became "more and more distraught ... about the way he was treated and the fact that he couldn't do anything about it."

While he too was unable to know for certain what had provoked al-Ajmi to become a suicide bomber, he maintained that this "horrible tragedy" could have been avoided if the administration had not turned its back on the due process of the law. "All we sought for him was a fair hearing, a process, and he was released by the US government without that process," he said, adding pertinently, "The lack of a process leads to problems. It leads to innocent people being held unfairly and not-so-innocent people going home without any hearing."

Disturbingly, the news of al-Ajmi's homicidal suicide has prompted Robert Gates, the US defense secretary, to wheel out some long-discredited statistics relating to the number of prisoners released from Guantánamo who have allegedly "returned to the battlefield." As reported by Reuters, Gates declared, "I was told today that the recidivism rate ... those who return to the battlefield, is probably somewhere between 5 and 10 percent -- maybe 6, 7 percent, something like that," adding, "We don't have a lot of specific cases. We're talking about one, two, three dozen that we have data on."

The Washington Post, however, hinted at quite how vague this analysis was by describing how the Defense Intelligence Agency has "estimated that as many as three dozen former Guantánamo detainees are confirmed or suspected of having returned to terrorist activities" (emphasis added). The Post also took note of legitimate concerns by international human rights groups and lawyers for the Guantánamo prisoners, who have "disputed that estimate, saying only a handful of former detainees have left US custody and gone on to fight US forces."

As I have explained before, and will, no doubt, continue to do so until I'm blue in the face, those who have studied the stories in any detail (myself included) not only dispute the Pentagon's figures, but also, crucially, point out that the US administration has refused to acknowledge the shocking truth about its own responsibility for releasing the half-dozen men whom all parties agree were released by mistake.

When Abdullah Mehsud, a Taliban commander released from Guantánamo in March 2004, killed himself with a hand grenade after being cornered by security forces in Pakistan last July, I pointed out that, had the US administration not behaved with arrogant unilateralism, neither Mehsud nor the handful of other released Afghan and Pakistani prisoners who returned to the battlefield would have been freed from Guantánamo in the first place.

Mehsud came to prominence in October 2004, after two Chinese engineers working on a dam project in Waziristan were kidnapped, when he spoke to reporters on a satellite phone and said that his followers were responsible for the abductions. He went on to explain that he had spent two years in Guantánamo after being captured in Kunduz in November 2001 while fighting with the Taliban. At the time of his capture he was carrying a false Afghan ID card, and throughout his detention he maintained that he was an innocent Afghan tribesman. He added that US officials never realized that he was a Pakistani with deep ties to militants in both countries, and also told Gulf News, "I managed to keep my Pakistani identity hidden all these years."

Another Taliban commander, Mullah Shahzada, who was released from Guantánamo in May 2003, gave the Americans a false name and claimed that he was an innocent rug merchant. "He stuck to his story and was fairly calm about the whole thing," a military intelligence official told the New York Times. "He maintained over a period time that he was nothing but an innocent rug merchant who just got snatched up." After his release, Shahzada seized control of Taliban operations in southern Afghanistan, recruiting fighters by "telling harrowing tales of his supposed ill-treatment in the cages of Guantánamo," and masterminded a jailbreak in Kandahar in October 2003, in which he bribed the guards to allow 41 Taliban fighters to escape through a tunnel. His post-Guantánamo notoriety came to an end in May 2004, when he was killed in an ambush by US Special Forces.

Another Afghan Taliban commander, Maulvi Abdul Ghaffar, who was released in March 2004, was killed six months later in Uruzgan by Afghan soldiers, who believed that he was leading the Taliban forces in the province.

However, while right-wing commentators seized on the release of Mehsud, Shahzada and Ghaffar as evidence that no one should ever be released from Guantánamo, a rather different interpretation was offered by Gul Agha Sherzai, the post-Taliban governor of Kandahar, who pointed out that Shahzada would never have been freed if Afghan officials had been allowed to vet the Afghans in Guantánamo. "We know all these Taliban faces," he said, adding that repeated requests for access to the Afghan prisoners had been turned down. Sherzai's opinion was reinforced by security officials in Hamid Karzai's government, who blamed the US for the return of Taliban commanders to the battlefield, explaining that "neither the American military officials, nor the Kabul police, who briefly process the detainees when they are sent home, consult them about the detainees they free."

So there you have it. Abdullah Mehsud, Mullah Shahzada, Maulvi Abdul Ghaffar and at least three other Taliban commanders -- Mullah Shakur, and two men known only as Sabitullah and Rahmatullah -- were released, and returned to the battlefield, because the US authorities refused to allow their allies in Afghanistan to have any involvement in screening the prisoners to ascertain who was actually dangerous.

In conclusion, then, while the story of Abdullah al-Ajmi's post-Guantánamo militancy is horrific in and of itself, it should not give the Pentagon free rein to indulge in dubious propaganda that whitewashes its own culpability for the release of Taliban fighters from Guantánamo, and nor should it deflect from the failures of the Guantánamo regime to provide an adequate method of screening, assessing and prosecuting those who are a genuine threat to the United States. The rules laid down by the Geneva Conventions -- and the US courts -- remain fit for purpose.

The alternative, as the right-wing bloggers are currently explaining, is to continue to allow the president to capture anyone he regards as a terrorist anywhere in the world and hold them forever without charge or trial. By this rationale, none of the 501 prisoners released from Guantánamo would ever have been released, not even the 92 or 93 percent of them -- that's around 460 men -- who, according to the Pentagon's own estimates, are not alleged to have returned to the battlefield.

For further information about the Kuwaitis in Guantánamo, see my book The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison.

Comments

[FarmworkerLawyer]

Well written. Unfortunately a graphic example of how the Bush/Cheney adminsitration has created more terrorists than Osama bin Laden ever dreamed of creating.

[SpoxLogic]

Why is it that you have to be a "terorist apologist" if you question the motives of the govt? It is a known fact that the simpliest way to get people to give away rights and more power to the govt is to scare the bejeezus outta 'em. So, why not have a terrorist farm in Guantanimo? Why else wouldn't they try these people? Why else would they hold some for years and then suddenly release them?
The only purpose is to have these guys become terrorists and when they blow up people like al-Ajmi did, then the Govt can use the incident to scare people.
The media and the govt are playing the American people for fools, and we seem to be very happy with it.

[Wasp35]

"The only purpose is to have these guys become terrorists and when they blow up people like al-Ajmi did, then the Govt can use the incident to scare people."

And why on Earth would our government do that? What is there to be gained other than the generic quest for "power" you reference? You're arguing that the U.S. INVENTED Islamic extremism so that Bush could grab a little more "power" during his 8 years in office. Do you just simply reject the idea that there are Muslims who want to kill all non-Muslims and that they were doing their dirty business for decades before Bush's inauguration? How do you explain the Islamic psychotics who have never spent a day at Gitmo? Is the history of these savage people and the culture they are raised in have no relevance at all? I guess not. In fact, considering that your theory is about how all of this terrorism stuff is an elaborate ruse to "scare people" makes me suspect you're a troooofer. The fact that you go to such unbelievable, totally irrational lengths to explain it all as the evil plot of the U.S. to create some manufactured enemy, instead of the simplest explanation supported by an ocean of evidence (that, in fact, they just really want us dead because we're not Muslim), makes me think you are definitely one of those troooofer people. In other words, you're completely hopeless.

[mamacat]

I think I agree with Ron Paul, in general, on what we are doing wrong in Afghanistan. The only thing we should have done was go in and get bin Laden. Since the Bush White House wouldn't let the troops on the ground get him when they had a chance at Tora Bora, what we have done since has been almost completely a disaster, similar to this administration's response to Katrina. To use Bush's own words, a trainwreck.

This administration insists in getting involved in matters that it doesn't understand, with terrible consequences for everyone involved, both them and us. If we had stuck with chasing al Qaeda, we wouldn't have ended up filling Gitmo with a bunch of Taleban political prisoners.

Another legacy of the the Bush/Cheney years, a Gitmo filled up with a very few al Qaeda, and a whole bunch of now radicalised political prisoners.

[Wasp35]

"Taliban political prisoners"?

Well, I guess so if you consider non-Muslims and non-Taliban Muslims breathing the same air a political issue.

[Thorn]

Incredible. We let a terrorist go. He then killed a bunch of people. And of course everyone here spins it to read that we're the complete bastards.

[Bobrobert]

Yeah.

The truth hurts doesn't it.

[RoloTomassi]

Please; it is far more likely that Gitmo INSPIRES terrorism than prevents it.

Take an American Christian and lock him up on BS charges, deride his religion, instill in him that you think he and all other Christians are terrorists, and then, when you can't figure out a way to keep him any longer [as he never had any information that you wanted anyway], you let him go.

So what would happen? Do you think it's out of the question that this persecuted individual might take up arms against the "criminal givernment" that wrongly incarcerated him?

Like Iraq, Gitmo makes the terrorism situation worse, not better.

[Wasp35]

Christians are imprisoned all over the world--not for ties to terrorism, but simply because of their religious beliefs. And they are subjected to draconian conditions that make Gitmo look like a resort and spa. But to answer your question, NO, they don't seem to take up arms against those fascist nations when and if they are ever released. At least I haven't heard about any Christian homicide bombers in places like North Korea, China, the Middle East or Africa. This ridiculous idea that terrorist acts are nothing more than retaliation for mistreatment by the West is just willful ignorance--it completely ignores the culture and religious beliefs that program these people to slaughter all non-Muslims to establish a global caliphate.

[elbzee]

What a wonderful program of terrorist manufacturing this is! At the rate we incite retailiation for perceived unfair treatment, there will be a lot of terrorists. Hell, now I understand McCain's 100 year war! We WILL have to fight to defend ourselves for at least a century!

[Wasp35]

elbzee, if acts of terror like the one committed by Abdullah al-Ajmi are just "retaliation" for the detention of these individuals at Gitmo, then I have a question for you:

WHY DO THEY BLOW THEMSELVES UP?

[Bobrobert]

Let me think!!!

To get to heaven.

To send those who treated them poorly to hell.

Just a guess.

I have a feeling alot of individuals who are mistreated take their anger out on innocent people.

What is the biggest cause of child abuse??? (HINT: Most individuals who abuse kids were themselves abused as children.)

If you need more hints check out Pysch 101 at your nearest college.

[WorkingClass]

Why would anyone believe this story? Remember Jessica Lynch? Pat Tillman? The lying generals on teevee?

[Bobrobert]

Let me guess.

JFk was not killed by a sniper.

The U.S. never landed a man on the moon.

If you were tortured and could kill those who tortured you - you would turn the other cheek and forget about it???

That is very big of you.

I do not know if others would agree with you.

Remember everyone - vote!!!

[Wasp35]

"If you were tortured and could kill those who tortured you - you would turn the other cheek and forget about it???"

So, Bobrobert, apparently your opinion is that terrorist acts that kill innocent people are perfectly legitimate, defensible responses to one having been detained and tortured at Gitmo. Now, does that excuse only apply to terrorists who have actually been detained by American forces? Or would it also apply to the terrorist acts of individuals who have not been detained, but are really pissed about any Muslims being detained generally? I guess the more direct question I have is, are there ANY circumstances in which you would not blame the U.S. for terrorist acts committed by Islamists?

[WorkingClass]

Take a wild stab at answering my question. Why would anyone believe this story knowing that the Pentagon is lying to the American people?

[whatstheidea]

Here is a question for terrorist apologists.
Why did this terrorist suicide bomber target fellow Muslims instead of Americans who you claim turned him into a suicide bomber?

[Wasp35]

An excellent question, whatstheidea, but certainly not one that you'll get an intellectually honest answer to. The "analytical" process for moral relativists like Worthington starts at the conclusion end of the equation (i.e., whatever heinous atrocity the Islamist committed was irrefutably the fault of the U.S.), and then works backwards, skipping inconvenient details like the ones you brought up, and leaping right back to the murderer's detention at Gitmo.

There are no circumstances that will ever compel a liberal to blame an Islamic fundamentalist for his own actions. If an individual is being detained at Gitmo, he's an innocent victim of U.S. arrogance and fear-mongering. If the detainee admits to masterminding terrorist attacks against the West, the confession is condemned as false because it was compelled by some draconian torture method. And in situations like this--where a released Gitmo detainee ACTUALLY COMMITS a heinous act of terrorism--it is excused as the inevitable (and justifiable) result of the U.S.'s oppression of Muslims. Hence, we deserved it (even when "we" weren't even targeted by the attack). And as if that weren't enough to confirm Worthington's credentials as a preeminent apologist, he then points yet another indignant finger at the Bush Administration for its "refusal to acknowledge the shocking truth" about the accidental release of a "half-dozen" men by mistake (men that Worthington would most certainly defend as railroaded, innocent victims if they were still detained at Gitmo). (cont.)

[SamEllison]

Wait until it's you two in Gitmo, then it's too late.
The rule of law, read all the words.

[Wasp35]

(cont.) What all of this reveals is that liberals are not upset that the Gitmo detainees are denied the presumption of innocence applicable to defendants in American courts. They are upset because they believe an entirely different standard should apply to the detainees: innocent until proven guilty; and innocent AFTER proven guilty.

[RoloTomassi]

HA! Since when has the likes of you or your ilk PROVEN ANYONE guilty? It certainly hasn't happened with the vast majority at Gitmo, as none of them has had a trial or an opportunity to even argue why they shouldn't be there.

Your argument now has become idiotic and completely illogical...which is typical.

[LittleBrother]

When I first heard of the alleged "ex-Guantanamo suicide bomber", I expected the corrupt and depraved US leadership, civilian and military, to spin this circumstance as a justification for the extra-legal and egregiously immoral detention of Middle Eastern citizens in Gitmo and elsewhere.

This rationalization will be accepted and echoed by credulous, weak-witted wingnut True Believers (stay tuned), lacking critical thinking skills to perceive that this argument reverses cause and effect.

Far from "proving" that the US was "right" to incarcerate such men in the first place, this event (if true) exemplifies what happens to a person's state of mind when he is kidnapped without due process by military authorities and ruthlessly imprisoned indefinitely under execrable conditions.

In short, the criminal invaders from "The Coalition of the Willing" cast a wide dragnet and incarcerated thousands in Gitmo and Iraq who may or may not have been "enemies" of the US. But those who are fortunate enough to escape the belly of this tiger the US is holding by the tail are CERTAINLY enemies of the US, thanks to our legendary hospitality.

After all, as the bigoted architects of our military adventures are wont to remind us, your Basic Muslim Mind isn't capable of the bonhomie and good-sportsmanship we Amerikans possess. Those ingrates will go away mad, in spite of all of the fresh fruit and two kinds of chicken their keepers plied them with over the long months! So naturally one might expect Hard Feelings.