Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Miami Herald
June 19, 2008
Pg. 1
A Taliban ambassador wielded power within Guantanamo, where the detainees treated him like a hero
By Tom Lasseter
Last of five parts
KABUL, Afghanistan — When U.S. guards frog-marched Abdul Salam Zaeef through the cellblocks of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detainees would roar his name, "Mullah Zaeef! Mullah Zaeef!"
Zaeef, in shackles, looked at the guards and smiled.
"The soldiers told me, 'You are the king of this prison,' " he recalled later.
Zaeef is the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan famous for his news conferences after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in which he said the militant Islamist group never would surrender Osama bin Laden.
Pakistani intelligence officers dragged him out of his house in Islamabad in late December 2001 or January 2002 and took him to Peshawar. "Your Excellency, you are no longer Your Excellency," he recalled one of them saying.
The Pakistanis handed him over to U.S. troops, who he said threw a sack over his head and pushed him into a helicopter. The Americans flew him to a warship, where he was held for about a week in a cell that reminded him of a dog kennel, he said.
"I was afraid about what would happen to me," Zaeef said in Kabul, wearing slightly crooked glasses and speaking in a near-whisper. "I didn't know if it was a dream or not. I never imagined this would happen to me."
Yet from mid-2002 until September 2005 at the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, he became a leader again. He helped orchestrate hunger strikes and exploit the missteps of a U.S. detention system that often captured the wrong men, mistreated them and then incarcerated them indefinitely without legal recourse.
The insurgency he helped launch in Guantánamo capitalized on the Americans' ignorance of Islamic customs and a pattern of interrupting prayers, shaving off prisoners' beards and searching their copies of the Quran.
U.S. officials didn't respond to repeated requests for comments about Zaeef's role at the camp, but former detainees from Europe to Central Asia spoke of him with reverence that bordered on hero worship.
"People would scream when they saw him: They said, 'We will send you our prayers,' " said Munir Naseer, a Pakistani.
A Kuwaiti bragged that he once lived in a cell next to Zaeef and touched his hand. An Afghan said men in his cellblock relied on Zaeef's advice about everything from prayer to protest. A Jordanian said Zaeef often brokered deals between the U.S. military and angry detainees. A Chinese Uighur called Zaeef the "president of Guantánamo."
Guantánamo debut
When he arrived at Guantánamo in spring or summer 2002, Zaeef was exhausted from the harsh treatment he had received at Kandahar Airfield in southern Afghanistan and Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul.
"He was very weak, physically, when I saw him at Guantánamo," said Mohammed Saduq, an Afghan who had commanded Zaeef during the fight against the Soviets. "It is very difficult to know the inside of a man, and it's hard to say how it affected him — going from an ambassador to being in a cage — but he told me in Guantánamo that he was suffering badly."
The rules at the camp, Zaeef said, reminded him of Bagram. The men weren't supposed to talk in their cells. They were supposed to say "please" and "sir" when they addressed guards. At Guantánamo, however, guards weren't beating the men, he said, and prisoners could speak up.
"After a month, we decided we could not accept these extremist measures. We must react," Zaeef said. "So we began shouting to each other. The soldiers came and asked if we were talking to each other. We said, 'Yes, we are not dogs.' We began throwing water at them, spitting at them; we said, 'If you want to kill us, fine.' "
A high-ranking officer came and spoke to the detainees, Zaeef said. The rules were rescinded. It was a victory in a game of inches.
Slowly, Zaeef realized it was the sort of place a man could wage a campaign.
Zaeef joined a small group of Taliban and al-Qaida leaders who were issuing orders and gathering reports; because he spoke fluent Arabic, Pashto and Dari, he could serve as a conduit among Arab, Pakistani and Afghan detainees. His English gave him further power, allowing him to represent those groups in conversations with U.S. military officers.
Zaeef knew the script. In the 1980s, a central rallying cry for the Islamic warriors who battled the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan — with crucial U.S. support — was that the Soviets were brutal infidels.
Cellblock leaders began spreading messages to the men around them: We must not tolerate these conditions; it's time for a hunger strike. Rumors that guards had mistreated the Quran often accompanied the messages.
Zaeef claimed to a reporter that he'd witnessed several instances of Quran abuse. However, a former Afghan detainee who was at Guantánamo said the stories that Zaeef and others spread — such as soldiers stomping on a Quran — were lies.
The hunger strikes were reported around the world. Aid groups and defense lawyers noted them as proof of Guantánamo's appalling conditions.
Camp officials eventually handed out surgical masks for detainees to hang from the walls of their cells as cradles for their Qurans, to keep them off the floor. Guards were ordered to be quiet during prayers, and orange cones with the letter "P" were placed in corridors during prayer time. Detainees were allowed to wear skullcaps, as prescribed by Islamic tradition. Guards were told never to touch prisoners' Qurans and to log every allegation of abuse.
Men such as Zaeef responded by growing more assertive. They wanted more than small wins.
Biding his time
In June 2005, Guantánamo detainees staged their biggest hunger strike yet: Up to 100 men refused to eat.
Prison authorities gathered detainee leaders and discussed their demands. Zaeef represented Afghans and Pakistanis, joining detainee representatives from several other nations.
After consulting detainees in the cellblocks, Zaeef and the other leaders produced a list of demands that included Geneva Conventions rights, court trials, less time in isolation cells, better treatment from the guards and so on.
However, the meetings among the detainees broke down before negotiations with U.S. authorities could proceed, Zaeef said, because the detainees worried that the Americans were eavesdropping to find out who their cellblock leaders were.
Zaeef was released that September.
He has been home for more than two years, under house arrest by the Afghan government, which relaxes and tightens its control according to his public remarks. Calling on a radio program for the Taliban to regain at least part of their ruling power, for instance, meant that he wasn't permitted to receive visitors for several weeks.
Two guards usually stand out front, next to a faded red door and a sentry house.
Asked whether his time at Guantánamo had changed him, Zaeef said it only convinced him further that America was the enemy of Islam.
He receives regular reports about the Taliban's brutal campaign to reassert itself in southern Afghanistan.
So, as he did for more than 1,000 days in Guantánamo, he sits and waits for his next chance at power.
June 19, 2008
Pg. 1
A Taliban ambassador wielded power within Guantanamo, where the detainees treated him like a hero
By Tom Lasseter
Last of five parts
KABUL, Afghanistan — When U.S. guards frog-marched Abdul Salam Zaeef through the cellblocks of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detainees would roar his name, "Mullah Zaeef! Mullah Zaeef!"
Zaeef, in shackles, looked at the guards and smiled.
"The soldiers told me, 'You are the king of this prison,' " he recalled later.
Zaeef is the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan famous for his news conferences after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in which he said the militant Islamist group never would surrender Osama bin Laden.
Pakistani intelligence officers dragged him out of his house in Islamabad in late December 2001 or January 2002 and took him to Peshawar. "Your Excellency, you are no longer Your Excellency," he recalled one of them saying.
The Pakistanis handed him over to U.S. troops, who he said threw a sack over his head and pushed him into a helicopter. The Americans flew him to a warship, where he was held for about a week in a cell that reminded him of a dog kennel, he said.
"I was afraid about what would happen to me," Zaeef said in Kabul, wearing slightly crooked glasses and speaking in a near-whisper. "I didn't know if it was a dream or not. I never imagined this would happen to me."
Yet from mid-2002 until September 2005 at the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, he became a leader again. He helped orchestrate hunger strikes and exploit the missteps of a U.S. detention system that often captured the wrong men, mistreated them and then incarcerated them indefinitely without legal recourse.
The insurgency he helped launch in Guantánamo capitalized on the Americans' ignorance of Islamic customs and a pattern of interrupting prayers, shaving off prisoners' beards and searching their copies of the Quran.
U.S. officials didn't respond to repeated requests for comments about Zaeef's role at the camp, but former detainees from Europe to Central Asia spoke of him with reverence that bordered on hero worship.
"People would scream when they saw him: They said, 'We will send you our prayers,' " said Munir Naseer, a Pakistani.
A Kuwaiti bragged that he once lived in a cell next to Zaeef and touched his hand. An Afghan said men in his cellblock relied on Zaeef's advice about everything from prayer to protest. A Jordanian said Zaeef often brokered deals between the U.S. military and angry detainees. A Chinese Uighur called Zaeef the "president of Guantánamo."
Guantánamo debut
When he arrived at Guantánamo in spring or summer 2002, Zaeef was exhausted from the harsh treatment he had received at Kandahar Airfield in southern Afghanistan and Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul.
"He was very weak, physically, when I saw him at Guantánamo," said Mohammed Saduq, an Afghan who had commanded Zaeef during the fight against the Soviets. "It is very difficult to know the inside of a man, and it's hard to say how it affected him — going from an ambassador to being in a cage — but he told me in Guantánamo that he was suffering badly."
The rules at the camp, Zaeef said, reminded him of Bagram. The men weren't supposed to talk in their cells. They were supposed to say "please" and "sir" when they addressed guards. At Guantánamo, however, guards weren't beating the men, he said, and prisoners could speak up.
"After a month, we decided we could not accept these extremist measures. We must react," Zaeef said. "So we began shouting to each other. The soldiers came and asked if we were talking to each other. We said, 'Yes, we are not dogs.' We began throwing water at them, spitting at them; we said, 'If you want to kill us, fine.' "
A high-ranking officer came and spoke to the detainees, Zaeef said. The rules were rescinded. It was a victory in a game of inches.
Slowly, Zaeef realized it was the sort of place a man could wage a campaign.
Zaeef joined a small group of Taliban and al-Qaida leaders who were issuing orders and gathering reports; because he spoke fluent Arabic, Pashto and Dari, he could serve as a conduit among Arab, Pakistani and Afghan detainees. His English gave him further power, allowing him to represent those groups in conversations with U.S. military officers.
Zaeef knew the script. In the 1980s, a central rallying cry for the Islamic warriors who battled the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan — with crucial U.S. support — was that the Soviets were brutal infidels.
Cellblock leaders began spreading messages to the men around them: We must not tolerate these conditions; it's time for a hunger strike. Rumors that guards had mistreated the Quran often accompanied the messages.
Zaeef claimed to a reporter that he'd witnessed several instances of Quran abuse. However, a former Afghan detainee who was at Guantánamo said the stories that Zaeef and others spread — such as soldiers stomping on a Quran — were lies.
The hunger strikes were reported around the world. Aid groups and defense lawyers noted them as proof of Guantánamo's appalling conditions.
Camp officials eventually handed out surgical masks for detainees to hang from the walls of their cells as cradles for their Qurans, to keep them off the floor. Guards were ordered to be quiet during prayers, and orange cones with the letter "P" were placed in corridors during prayer time. Detainees were allowed to wear skullcaps, as prescribed by Islamic tradition. Guards were told never to touch prisoners' Qurans and to log every allegation of abuse.
Men such as Zaeef responded by growing more assertive. They wanted more than small wins.
Biding his time
In June 2005, Guantánamo detainees staged their biggest hunger strike yet: Up to 100 men refused to eat.
Prison authorities gathered detainee leaders and discussed their demands. Zaeef represented Afghans and Pakistanis, joining detainee representatives from several other nations.
After consulting detainees in the cellblocks, Zaeef and the other leaders produced a list of demands that included Geneva Conventions rights, court trials, less time in isolation cells, better treatment from the guards and so on.
However, the meetings among the detainees broke down before negotiations with U.S. authorities could proceed, Zaeef said, because the detainees worried that the Americans were eavesdropping to find out who their cellblock leaders were.
Zaeef was released that September.
He has been home for more than two years, under house arrest by the Afghan government, which relaxes and tightens its control according to his public remarks. Calling on a radio program for the Taliban to regain at least part of their ruling power, for instance, meant that he wasn't permitted to receive visitors for several weeks.
Two guards usually stand out front, next to a faded red door and a sentry house.
Asked whether his time at Guantánamo had changed him, Zaeef said it only convinced him further that America was the enemy of Islam.
He receives regular reports about the Taliban's brutal campaign to reassert itself in southern Afghanistan.
So, as he did for more than 1,000 days in Guantánamo, he sits and waits for his next chance at power.