Everything felt jarringly strange. ?Black sites,? Uncertain Future for the ICC's Investigation into the CIA Torture Program One of the first "black sites" where suspected al-Qaeda terrorists were interrogated after the 9/11 terror attacks was a secret, underground CIA prison outside Bagram Air Base in. The commandant was later identified as Matthew Zirbel. Harward refused to comment on the existence of the classified JSOC facility, but he said the bin Laden debate illustrates "this unanswered issue of what do we do with high-value targets that require long-term incarceration in the future.". A prisoner ran across his field of vision, heading toward the southeast corner of the fort. Rahmans family are still searching for his body, which has never been returned to them. Below their ashy grey remains, pools of molten metal had solidified into permanent shiny puddles as the blaze cooled. Blew Up a C.I.A. In August 2003, Muller said that he believed the site was merely a holding facility. [2] [3] It was located north of Kabul and was the location of a brick factory prior to the Afghanistan War. By signing up, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy & to receive electronic communications from Vice Media Group, which may include marketing promotions, advertisements and sponsored content. Gul Rahman ( Pashto: ; died November 20, 2002) was an Afghan man, suspected by the United States of being a militant, who was a victim of torture. But it did recommend that Zirbel be punished: "a 10-day suspension without pay.". CIA activities in Afghanistan - Wikipedia Just four months after Rahman died, the CIA station chief in Afghanistan recommended that Zirbel be awarded $2,500 for his "consistently superior work," according to the Senate's torture report. While there, the BOP team instructed guards on the proper use of a restraining technique against detainees called "short chaining," also referred to as short shackling. Oct 17, 2021. It was unclear what the Taliban, once so austere that they even banned chess, would do with the trappings of western military downtime. Majid Khan's hearing took place at Camp Justice, at the Guantnamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Khaled al-Maqtari has been held both at the notorious hard site "An internal CIA review and autopsy assessed that Rahman likely died from hypothermiain part from having been forced to sit on the bare concrete floor without pants," it said. Last year, only 1,300 suspects out of 6,600 arrested across Afghanistan ended up at the Parwan detention facility, according to Harward. The systemic problems at the black site identified by the IG at the time included a lack of resources, training guidance, and oversight. A team of American CIA officials were dispatched to the Republic of Macedonia, where they kidnapped El-Masri after he was released by the Macedonian officers, but without regard to his legal rights under Macedonian law. [2][3] It was located north of Kabul and was the location of a brick factory prior to the Afghanistan War. In military terminology, a black site is a location at which an unacknowledged black project is conducted. March 3, 2022. '", The U.S. military legal adviser who visited the site in November 2002 noted that the junior CIA officer designated as warden of the facility "has little to no experience with interrogating or handling prisoners.". Tyson got to the pile of writhing bodies and could see Spann at the bottom, recognizable by his fleece, jeans, and brown boots. As Tyson headed toward the Pink House, a young Arab prisoner with a pale face and jet-black hair came running directly at him. On 9 October 2007 the U.S Supreme Court declined to hear El-Masri's appeal of the lower courts, without comment. Two Tunisians interrogated at CIA black site in Afghanistan secretly Vickers labors mightily to demonstrate that his strategy there, centered on President Obama . Mapping CIA Black Sites - Amnesty International USA [4], Gul Rahman is the only publicly known death from the Salt Pit. "All detainees are treated humanely in compliance with all U.S. and international laws, including Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions," Nye wrote in an e-mail. But suspected terrorists in Afghanistan are being held and interrogated for weeks at temporary sites. The Washington Post's sources noted that the CIA camp commandant had subsequently been promoted. At the time of Rahman's death, according to the CIA accountability board's report as well as the Senate's torture report, the CIA had not yet "fully developed formal detention and interrogation guidelines; guidance was ad hoc and there was ambiguous chain of command from headquarters." U.S. military and other government officials confirmed that the detention centers exist but described them as temporary holding pens whose primary purpose is to gather intelligence. At Titanic Site, the Grim Job Now Is Assessing the Submersible's Debris Is that what the Koran teaches? Spann would not live to know it, but the Irishman had trained in an Al-Qaeda camp and had met with Osama bin Laden. He holds a First Class degree in modern history from Oxford and is the author of Bandit Country: The IRA & South Armagh and Dead Men Risen: An Epic Story of War and Heroism in Afghanistan. 3 person at the CIA, was sentenced to three years in prison in 2009 in connection with a bribery scheme involving Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Rahman was captured in Islamabad on 29 October 2002. [6] According to an article distributed by Reuters, eight Guantanamo detainees have described the conditions they were held under in "the dark prison". Special Operations Command spokesman Col. Tim Nye denies the allegations, insisting the detainees are treated in accordance with U.S. detention laws, rewritten since the Bush era to prohibit the harshest interrogation techniques. I dont have a plan and Im not doing anything, he thought. He had no real decisions to make and faced no dilemmas. [1] They described being deprived of food and water and being given filthy food and water when they were fed. She produced day in the life pieces with President Barack Obama, covered the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the Joplin tornado and produced profiles of Perez Hilton and Jay-Z. The prisoners were kept in total darkness and isolation, with only a bucket for human waste and without sufficient heat in winter months. The most secretive of roughly 20 temporary sites is run by the military's elite counterterrorism unit, the Joint Special Operations Command, at Bagram Air Base. All of the projects presented this weekand many morewill be at display in New Orleans. Only the occasional wail or protestation could be heard above the larks singing in the morning sunshine. "CIA Headquarters did not approve these interrogation techniques in advance.". Newly released CIA documents show that trainers from the Federal Bureau of Prisons traveled to a CIA black site in Afghanistan and trained guards shortly before a detainee named Gul Rahman was found dead in his cell. The Salt Pit and Cobalt were the code names of an isolated clandestine CIA black site prison and interrogation center outside Bagram Air Base [1] in Afghanistan. Former Representative Will Hurd, a Republican from a swing district in Texas who served three terms, faces the daunting task of establishing himself in a field of much better-known . December 9 2014, 5:39 p.m. Six days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, President George W. Bush issued a directive allowing the CIA to secretly detain and interrogate prisoners at. Construction equipment was abandoned on the site, with concrete slabs half poured. Other accounts cited in the report describe detainees being shackled to the bar with their hands above their heads, forcing them to stand, and therefore not allowing the detainees to sleep. They will be expanded and further organised. Many of those interviewed said "they were forced to strip naked in front of other detainees, which is very humiliating for them," Eviatar said. When the Bureau of Prisons declined to honor the requests, the ACLU took the matter to court. ", It goes on to say that others "in the chain of command were satisfied with [Zirbel's] performance based in part on first hand observations, an appropriate awareness of the interrogation techniques used on Rahman, and the conditions of Rahman's confinement. The status of the temporary facilities likely would be negotiated as part of a future security agreement, transitioning power to the government of Afghanistan. I know you speak English. ", "CIA documents expose agency feud over psychologists leading interrogation program", "The Charmed Life of a CIA Torturer: How Fate Diverged for Matthew Zirbel, aka CIA Officer 1, and Gul Rahman", "CIA accused of detaining innocent man: If the agency knew he was the wrong man, why was he held? "According to CIA records, interrogators began using the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques at Detention Site Cobalt a 'few minutes'after the questioning of KSM began," it stated. Petraeus wanted to force more openness on the JSOC, a secretive organization that runs special missions units within the military to perform highly classified activities, according to a senior official briefed on the program, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss classified matters. But VICE News obtained heavily redacted copies of documents describing the findings of those reports, which were shared with a handful of members of congressional oversight committees in 2002, 2003, and 2006, in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit. Most of the prisoners were bearded, their hair long and unruly after their turbans had been removed, and they hailed from across the globe. Next door, a building that had once been fortified with high-tech doors and equipment had apparently been firebombed, its interior as totally destroyed and reduced to ash as the cars outside. Feinstein singled out Rahman's death and the lack of accountability as one example. They describe "black site" prisons where terrorism suspects were held in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, and include testimony from those suspects on how they were treated in CIA custody.. Detainees then can be held up to 14 days in a temporary facility before being either released or transferred to a public detention facility called Parwan that is jointly run by the United States and Afghanistan. [1] [2] He had been captured October 29, 2002. Abu Zubaydah Was Tortured for Years at CIA Black Sites. Biden Is Trying In the winter of 2005, the Salt Pit became known to the general public because of two incidents. The Pentagon's Route out of Afghanistan Passes Through a Former CIA It is responsible for the security of important locations. The site's location, a short drive from a well-known public detention center, has been alleged for more than a year. Aged 32 and his hair lightly dusted with gray, he had grown a thin mustache, and over his black Columbia fleece was a rifle strap, attaching his AKMS to his back loosely so he could quickly swing it to his shoulder. CIA "black sites" in Afghanistan and in an unknown country until days before President Bush's 6 September 2006 announcement, when the CIA network of secret jails appears to have been at least temporarily cleared. The remarkable case of the triple agent and the bombing in Khost A former foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times of London and the Daily Telegraph who reported from thirty-three countries, he specializes in terrorism and war.
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