Canadian detained by US denies terror charge

[Judi Lynn]

Canadian detained by US denies terror charge
By DeNeen Brown in Toronto
December 3, 2003

http://www.smh.com.au/ffxImage/urlpicture_id_1070351589183_2003/12/02/240abdurhaman_khadr,0.jpg

Abdur Rahman Khadr. Photo: Reuters

A Canadian, who was held as an "enemy combatant" and released from US custody in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has admitted being trained at an Afghanistan camp linked to al-Qaeda, but denied being a terrorist.

Abdur Rahman Khadr, 20, said at a news conference in Toronto that he learnt how to use assault rifles at the camp, set up originally by Americans to train resistance fighters against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Mr Khadr said such training was common for boys living in Afghanistan, where he was born to Canadian citizens.

"Everybody went to training camps in Afghanistan to fight against the Russians and kick them out of Afghanistan. That doesn't mean every person in the camps are trained to kill Americans.

"Who were the camps made by? Americans. It was a very normal thing. People who came to the training camps were not all al-Qaeda."
(snip/...)

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/02/1070351586939.html

[truthisfreedom]

1. well, now, that's interesting. a news article that mentions the camps are

US in origin? my, my. will wonders never cease.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

5. Do you think the CIA might have been behind this article?...(3 more links)

After all, it was the CIA that helped build the camps AND the cavern-like tunnel systems while the Afghans were fighting the old Soviet Union. We also supplied the Stinger missiles and the money to buy any other arms that they needed.

There are more twists and turns in this story than anyone could ever hope to completely unravel. Here's another article of interest:

USA - Bush's Faustian Deal With the Taliban
by Robert Scheer
Los Angeles Times
May 22, 2001
<http://www.apfn.org/apfn/wtc_deal.htm>

"Enslave your girls and women, harbor anti-U.S. terrorists, destroy every vestige of civilization in your homeland, and the Bush administration will embrace you. All that matters is that you line up as an ally in the drug war, the only international cause that this nation still takes seriously.

That's the message sent with the recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in the world today. The gift, announced last Thursday by Secretary of State Colin Powell, in addition to other recent aid, makes the U.S. the main sponsor of the Taliban and rewards that "rogue regime" for declaring that opium growing is against the will of God. So, too, by the Taliban's estimation, are most human activities, but it's the ban on drugs that catches this administration's attention.

Never mind that Osama bin Laden still operates the leading anti-American terror operation from his base in Afghanistan, from which, among other crimes, he launched two bloody attacks on American embassies in Africa in 1998.

Sadly, the Bush administration is cozying up to the Taliban regime at a time when the United Nations, at U.S. insistence, imposes sanctions on Afghanistan because the Kabul government will not turn over Bin Laden."

And here's an even more interesting article, IMHO:

Taleban in Texas for talks on gas pipeline
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/west_asia/37021.stm>

"A senior delegation from the Taleban movement in Afghanistan is in the United States for talks with an international energy company that wants to construct a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistan.

A spokesman for the company, Unocal, said the Taleban were expected to spend several days at the company's headquarters in Sugarland, Texas."

And guess who was the spokesman for Unocal? Link:

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/forum_archive_html/DCForumID38/1260.html>

[izzie]

2. I do not understand about these camps.

Americans set them up? They were set up before we went to war so how can the people who joined them be agaist America?If twin towers had not been hit would they be OK?No one seems to know what they are doing any place in our gov.

[DUreader]

3. They know exactly what they are doing, thus the secretive nature

of most everything they do

[iverglas]

4. is this the first mention of this story at DU??

I did a search for "Khadr" in the last 2 weeks at DU, and nothing.

The real story here is what the US has done to yet another Canadian citizen, and is still doing to his brother who was a 15-year-old child at the time he was first interned.

First, Khadr was held in the conditions at Guantanamo that we are all familiar with.

He had no documents to establish his Canadian citizenship, but he asserted it to the US authorities. He also holds Egyptian citizenship.

When he was "released", he was informed by the US authorities -- who did not contact Canadian authorities -- that Canada did not want him back.

(A Canadian citizen has an absolute RIGHT to enter Canada, just as a US citizen has an absolute right to enter the US.)

Globe and Mail, Nov. 25, 2003:

According to <Toronto lawyer> Galati's statement, the young man was released by the Americans late last month. "He was then, according to his American captors, refused entry into Canada as Canada would not permit re-entry. U.S. troops then dumped him in Afghanistan with no ID and no money."

Khadr has since clarified what happened after he was dumped in Afghanistan. He made his way first to Pakistan and then to Turkey, where he was unable to speak with Canadian consular officials when (locally-hired, usually) embassy security turned him away because of his lack of documents.


Khadr and his younger brother Omar, who turned 17 in September 2003, were both captured and interned at Guantanamo.

Globe and Mail, Dec. 1, 2003:

... among the more than 100 men and boys slated to leave the high-security camp is a teenager accused of shooting to death a U.S. Special Forces soldier in Afghanistan. The youth pretended to be dead, then opened fire on his captors, the official said. Mr. Khadr is also alleged to have killed an American in the fighting that followed the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan two years ago, but U.S. authorities have said previously that he killed a medic, rather than a Special Forces soldier, and that he did so with a hand grenade.

... In February, U.S. authorities allowed Canadian officials to visit him for the first time, heeding Ottawa's request that as a juvenile he should be treated differently from other detainees.

Published reports have said that Omar Khadr and his brother, born and raised in Scarborough, grew up in a household dominated by a father with extremist Muslim views and that he was captured by U.S. Special Forces at an al-Qaeda compound in Afghanistan.

There's no news on when Omar, who was 15 when he was first interned, might be released or otherwise dealt with.

Unlike the case against Omar, who was caught wounded after a battle, Abdul Rahman Khadr's case has always been murkier. This is acknowledged by Canadian officials.

"It was always very tenuous . . . the sense we all had was that they couldn't get the father to come into the open," andAbdul Rahman's arrest was "a pressure tactic," said Gar Pardy, the recently retired head of consular services at Canada's Foreign Affairs Department.

A charming way to treat a citizen of an ally nation.

.