Inside Gitmo
Chapter 2:
Muhammad al Qahtani:
A Terrorist Case Study
Content Summary
- What are the numbers and demographics of the detainee population at Guantanamo? Many people are unaware that of the tens of thousands of captured enemy fighters from Afghanistan and elsewhere, very few percentage-wise actually were removed to Guantanamo.
- Some people believe that women detainees and minors are kept at the facility. A breakdown of the population clarifies some misconceptions.
- One of the most interesting case studies in Guantanamo is that of a Saudi named Muhammad al Qahtani. We review his conversion to the Wahabbist ideology of bloody jihad, his journeys to Afghanistan and training there, his pledge of fealty to Usama bin Laden personally and his journey to the U.S. to join Mohammad Atta and the rest of the 9/11 hijack team.
- Qahtani was named as a member of the team in a little-publicized deposition given by Khalid Sheik Mohammad (KSM) in the trial of Zacharias Moussaouis trial and conviction of terrorism.
- In his deposition, which ran to 58 pages, KSM outlined the role Qahtani was to play in the 9/11 attack.
- Independent of this testimony, sources pinpoint the facts that Atta and a fellow conspirator were waiting in the spacious lobby of Orlando International Airport for Qahtani to clear customs and immigration.
- Qahtani blew it. Learn how an alert INS official thwarted entrance to the U.S. by a man self-designated (though he later recanted) as the 20th hijacker.
- We see a Qahtani, frustrated by attempts to enter the U.S., return to Afghanistan, take up fighting Coalition forces and eventually be captured in Pakistan, either fleeing the battle or dispatched on another martyrdom mission by bin Laden.
Note: chapter 3 goes on to explore what happened when Qahtani was abused
in the early days of Gitmo, and what was done about it.
Reprinted end notes from chapter two of the book, with links to source
documents
and other supporting materials
1. Quoted by David Kaspar, Davids Medienkritik, January 2006.
2. There are many articles and reports documenting the use of child soldierssome as young as just six years oldin Afghanistan and Iraq. Some selections covering this problem during the early days of the war in Afghanistan include Hannah Beech Farkhar, The Child Soldiers, Time, November 4, 2001; Rachel Stohl, Children on the Front Line: Child Soldiers in Afghanistan, Center for Defense Information, October 15, 2001; and David Rohde, 12 Year Olds Take Up Arms Against Taliban, New York Times, October 2, 2001. More recent articles of interest on this subject include Monte Morin, Taliban Recruiting Afghan Children for Suicide Bombings, Stars and Stripes, June 27, 2007; Marc Perelman, A New, Younger Jihadi Threat Emerges, Christian Science Monitor, December 28, 2007; Nick Owens, Child Soldiers Trained by the Taliban to Kill British Soldiers, Mirror.co.uk, February 8, 2008; and Juvenile Detainees Gain Second Chance through Dar Al-Hikmah from the Operation Iraqi Freedom Official Website of the Multi-National Force Iraq, August 17, 2007. Videos of child soldiers, including six-year-old Juma Gul, who had been tricked by the Taliban into wearing a suicide vest and instructed to throw himself at U.S. soldiers, can be found by typing child soldiers Taliban into the search box at YouTube.com.
[Inside Gitmo website administrative note: after a great deal of contemplation we have decided to include the Juma Gul and other child soldier video clips here on this webpage for the sake of documenting the above statements and eliminating the need for readers to search for the referenced videos..]
Warning: The contents of these videos on child soldiers may be
disturbing to many people. We do not recommend viewing by children
or others who may be upset by their graphic content. |
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3. Charge Sheet as filed in the case against Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, and Muhammad al Qahtani, dated February 11, 2008.
4. Documentation of Attas presence in the Orlando airport parking garage includes The 9/11 Commission Report, page 248; the Charge Sheet as filed in the case against Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, and Muhammad al Qahtani, dated February 11, 2008; Adam Zagorin and Michael Duffy, Inside the Interrogation of Detainee 063, Time, June 12, 2005.
5. Statement of Jose E. Melendez-Perez to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, January 26, 2004.
6. As discussed in the documents cited above.
7. Ibid.
8. Charge Sheet as filed in the case against Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, and Muhammad al Qahtani, dated February 11, 2008.
9. Unclassified Summary of Evidence for the Department of Defense Administrative Review Board, Muhammad Mani Ahmed al Shal Lan al Qahtani, October 31, 2005. [Inside Gitmo website administrative note: this file was previously located at http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/ARB_Round_1_Factors_000001-000098.pdf but has since been removed from the internet. Since unclassified government reports are not copyrighted, the document author Gordon Cucullu refers to can be seen starting on page 91 of the PDF file that has been preserved through this website: click here.]
10. Substitution for the Testimony of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad provided by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, undated Acrobat PDF file at http://www.rcfp.org/moussaoui/pdf/DX-0941.pdf. [Inside Gitmo website administrative note: the above referenced PDF file is in a scanned graphics based format, making it very difficult to search. However, an easily searchable HTML text version of the document is also available on the internet at http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Substitution_for_the_Testimony_of_KSM .]
11. Tim McGirk with Ghulam Hasnain, reporting from Waziristan, In These Remote Hills, a Resurgent al-Qaeda, Time, September 15, 2003; Rahimullah Yusufzai, Waziristan: Bin Ladens Hiding Place? BBC, March 3, 2004; Karen DeYoung, Letter Gives Glimpse of Al-Qaedas Leadership, Washington Post, October 2, 2006; and Declan and Allegra Stratton, Waziristan: The Hub of al-Qaida Operations, guardian.co.uk, January 7, 2008.
12. Craig Whitlock, Al Qaeda Detainees Mysterious Release: Moroccan Spoke of Aiding Bin Laden During 2001 Escape, Washington Post, January 30, 2006.
13. Unclassified Summary of Evidence for the Department of Defense Administrative Review Board, Muhammad Mani Ahmed al Shal Lan al Qahtani, October 31, 2005.
14. Interview with Paul Rester, June 2006.
15. A Review of the FBIs Involvement in and Observations of Detainee Interrogations in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, and Iraq, U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, May 2008. Also see Adam Zagorin and Michael Duffy, Inside the Interrogation of Detainee 063, Time, June 12, 2005.
16. Steven Schwartz, The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Saud from Tradition to Terror. New York: Doubleday, 2002.
17. Summary of Administrative Review Board Proceedings for ISN 063, Department of Defense.
18. The 9/11 Commission Report, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, p. 226.
19. Transliterations into English are always confused. Can also be found as al Farouq. See Global Security, Terrorist Training Camps, for background into al Qaedas Afghanistan camps.
20. Judith Miller, Pentagon Says Bombs Destroy Terror Camps, New York Times, October 10, 2001.
21. United States v. David Hicks First Report of the Law Independent Legal Observer for the Law Council of Australia, September 2004. This report notes that Hicks attended an eight- week training course at the al Farouk training camp starting in January or February 2001, and then began a seven-week al Qaeda training course in April 2001 at an unspecified camp. [Inside Gitmo website administrative note: see page 23 of the above referenced PDF file for this information.]
22. FBI Special Agent Anne E. Asbury, United States v. John Philip Walker Lindh, Affidavit in Support of a Criminal Complaint and an Arrest Warrant, January 15, 2002.
23. Ibid.
24. Phil Hirschkorn, Four Embassy Bombers Get Life, CNN, October 21, 2001.
25. Jayna Davis, The Third Terrorist. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2004.
26. Louis Freeh, My F.B.I. New York: St. Martins Press, 2005.
27. Author interview with Paul Rester, Chief of the Detention and Interrogation Group, Guantanamo Bay, June 2006.
28. Schwartz, The Two Faces of Islam.
29. Charge sheet as filed in the case against Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash, Ramzi bin al- Shibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, and Muhammad al Qahtani, dated February 11, 2008.
30. Unclassified Summary of Evidence for the Department of Defense Administrative Review Board, Muhammad Mani Ahmed al Shal Lan al Qahtani, October 31, 2005.
31. Summary of Administrative Review Board Proceedings for ISN 063, October 2006.
32. Ibid.
33. Substitution for the Testimony of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad provided by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, undated Acrobat PDF file at http://www.rcfp.org/moussaoui/pdf/DX-0941.pdf .
34. Charge sheet as filed in the case against Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash, Ramzi bin al- Shibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, and Muhammad al Qahtani dated February 11, 2008. This charge sheet is available on the Department of Defense website at www.defenselink.mil/news/Feb2008/d20080211chargesheet.pdf .
35. Ibid.
36. Statement of Jose E. Melendez-Perez to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, January 26, 2004.
37. Ibid.
38. Guantanamo Provides Valuable Intelligence Information, Department of Defense press release, June 12, 2005; Interrogation Log Detainee 063 covering the period of November 23, 2002 to January 11, 2003; Richard A. Serrano, In Court, Two 20th Hijackers Stand Up, Los Angeles Times, April 3, 2006.
39. Statement of Jose E. Melendez- Perez to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, January 26, 2004.
40. Ibid. Additional documentation of Qahtani's behavior and other specifics detailing his attempted entry into the United States are also available through numerous newspaper articles as well as the charge sheet as filed in the case against Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash, Ramzi bin al- Shibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, and Muhammad al Qahtani dated February 11, 2008.
41. Substitution for the Testimony of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad provided by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, undated Acrobat PDF file at http://www.rcfp.org/moussaoui/pdf/DX-0941.pdf .
42. The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 236. This training method is also mentioned in Scott Shane and Neil A. Lewis, At Sept. 11 Trial, Tale of Missteps and Management, New York Times, March 31, 2006, which attributes KSM as a source of this information.
43. The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 235.
44. Ibid., p. 236.
45. United States v. Zacarias Moussaoui. Also see Rochelle Steinhaus, Zacarias Moussaoui: The 20th Hijacker?, Court TV, June 24, 2002.
46. Substitution for the Testimony of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad provided by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, undated Acrobat PDF file at http://www.rcfp.org/moussaoui/pdf/DX-0941.pdf .
47. KSM recalled that Qahtani in fact realized that a suicide attack would take place and that he was to take part. However, not all al Qaeda operatives are aware of the nature of their deadly assignments: Post9/11 videos of Osama bin Laden entertaining a visiting Saudi sheikh show him smiling faintly while relating that some of his jihadists were not aware that this was intended to be a martyrdom operation.
48. Presidential Address to the Congress, September 12, 2001. [Inside Gitmo website administrative note: see the September 12, 2001 article entitled American People Will Not be Cowed by Terrorism by Scott Stearns quoting President Bush declaring "I have directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice."]
49. There are many good accounts of the battle for Qala-i-Jangi, including Robin Moore's Hunt for Bin Laden, and contemporary news accounts such as Alex Perry, Inside the Battle at Qala-I-Jangi, Time, December 1, 2001. Some information for these accounts is derived from author interviews with U.S. Army Special Forces Captain Erick Roitsch, who was a participant in the battle.
50. Alex Perry, Inside the Battle at Qala-I-Jangi, Time, December 1, 2001.
51. Moore, Hunt for bin Laden.
52. Author interview with JIG director Paul Rester, January 2006.
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"I've also been 'inside GITMO,' and Cucullu's riveting account shows why we've been safer with it
"Our new president should read it — twice — and take its truth-telling to heart."
"Every relevant military and civilian official should give Cucullu's analysis a fair hearing." 
"An explosive expos of what's really been happening - 'inside the wire' at Guantanamo. Gordon Cucullu - with his Special Forces background, thorough research and extensive visits to Gitmo - knows more about the now-infamous detention facility than any 'outsider.' This book is a must-read for all who care about how we protect ourselves from those who are dying to kill us." 
"Inside Gitmo is a book of incalculable importance. It lays bare the myths and the stakes involved in the campaign to shut down a facility that any objective reader must conclude is vital to our national security. Every policy-maker in Washington and every citizen across America should study this books brilliant first-hand reporting and its alarming findings." 
"Gordon Cucullu has written a lively work of history that fulfills its promise to explode 'the myths of Guantanamo Bay.' Anyone who wants to speak authoritatively about the Bush administration's detainee policies has to read this book." 
