Al-Qaeda Prison Break
Four Arab Captives, Including A Top Terror Operative, Manage To Slip Through Three Rings Of Security.
By-Michael Hirsch
Newsweek.

Nov. 14, 2005 Issue- Bagram airbase is home to one of the most heavily fortified military prisons in the World. Located in the shadow of the Hindu Kush about 30 miles North of Kabul, the facility holds hundreds of alleged Jihadists at the center of three tight rings of security, surrounded by US and Afghan troops.

To enter through a labyrinth of concrete and dirt-filled-wire barriers that are overlooked by two-story-high observation posts. The prisoners, dressed in Orange Jumpsuits, are kept in wire cages in the middle of an old Warehouse. Somewhat like Hannibal Lecter in "silence of the lambs." The Warehouse in turn is ringed by razor wire and finally the fences and guard posts of the airbase itself.

Yet in the early Morning hours of July 11, 2005, US officials say, four of these brightly attired men somehow penetrated each of the three security cordons and slipped through a Soviet-era Minefield just outside the base, one purposely left active. Then the escapees disappeared into the darkness, managing even to elude local Tajik Villagers who are generally hostile to foreign fighters.

It was, almost everyone agreed, an astonishing feat. "If this really happened as reported, it makes the great escape of World War II look like an outward bound exercise," said one US defense analyst familiar with detainee operations who would speak only if he were not named.

On wanted posters that were displayed around Bagram at the time, the escapees were identified vaguely as foreigners who had come to join Al Qaeda in Afghanistan-a Kuwaiti, a Syrian, a Libyan and a Saudi. But last week Pentagon officials were forced to admit that one of the fugitives was not who they said he was.

Originally identified as one Mahmoud Ahmad Mohammed of Kuwait, he was actually Omar Al-Faruq, a well-known Qaeda leader in Southeast Asia who had been handed over to the Americans by Indonesian authorities in 2002.

Faruq's true identity emerged after defense lawyer at the Texas trial of a US soldier accused of brutality at Bagram called Faruq as a witness-only to be told by the US Army he was no longer there.

What really happened at Bagram last July? no one knows, or at least those who know aren't saying. But coming at a time when America's detention policies in the Global War on Terror are underfire, Faruq's disappearance raises new questions about whether the system with so little transparency, accountability and oversight can continue.

Bagram is an open book compared with those secret facilities around the World that are run by the CIA but not publicly acknowledged.

Even at the agency, "senior people are saying we've got to have an endgame to this," says one career CIA official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "this isn't sustainable."

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told Newsweek "this is a field facility. It isn't Rikers [Island]."
"this is not the first time that prisoners have escaped from military facilities in Afghanistan as well as Iraq."

But few Afghans seem to believe an escape from Bagram is possible, and that has given rise to rumors about the July 11 breakout. According to one fugitive Taliban commander interviewed by a Newsweek reporter last Week, the four men were actually exchanged in secret for captured US Special-Operations troops. Whitman called that account "absolutely absurd and completely untrue."

Two US Counterterrorism officials also sought to play down Faruq's importance. One official, who would speak only if he were not identified, said Faruq had been held elsewhere in the secret US detention system oversees but was then transferred to Bagram, which normally houses ordinary foot soldiers in the Jihadist movement.

Yet this seemed to contradict previous accounts in which Bush administration officials-before Farouq got away-emphasized his Stature in Al Qaeda, "he was the top Qaeda guy in Southeast Asia," says Zachary Abuza, an expert on Asian Jihadist groups at Simmons College in Boston.

"He was one of the first guys who was part of the CIA's Rendition Program," in which terror suspects are ferried abroad.

The Indonesians also believe Faruq is quite a big fish-and still very dangerous. In June 2002, Indonesian Intelligence officers arrested Faruq and handed him over to US officials. They have come to regret it. Because the Bush administration has viewed this as a War without traditional rules, it has largely denied Jakarta and other governments legal access to detainees like Faruq.

Jakarta repeatedly requested-but never got-the right to question Faruq to support its legal case against the alleged spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiah, Abu Bakar Bashir.

Much remains to be learned about the great escape from Bagram. But the tale may bolster the case of those who argue that handling detainees in such an extralegal, secretive was is only hurting the antiterror campaign.

After a few Months, most detainees are milked of all Intelligence value and are useful mainly as witnesses, Terror Experts Say.

"There has got to be some resolution," say the CIA.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9938331/site/newsweek/