After being secretly held by the CIA for months, an Iraqi who was among al-Qaeda's most senior and experienced operatives has been transported to the Guantanamo Bay military prison for terror suspects, officials said on Friday.
Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi is believed responsible for plotting cross-border attacks from Pakistan on US forces in Afghanistan and led an effort to assassinate Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf and UN officials, the Pentagon said.
The transfer of al-Iraqi, said to have been an associate of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, makes him the 15th so called "high-value" detainee known to have been handed over to military officials at the US Navy facility in Cuba from CIA control.
The arrangement continues to be controversial. People in the secret prisons are subject to harsh interrogation methods that human rights groups say amount to torture. US President George W. Bush's administration says the methods are legal and the interrogation necessary to protect the US from attack.
The Pentagon said al-Iraqi was born in Mosul, in northern Iraq, in 1961 and served in Iraq's military. Spokesman Bryan Whitman said he was a major al-Qaeda paramilitary leader in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, and in 2002 to 2004 led efforts to attack US forces in Afghanistan with guerrilla forces based in Pakistan.
Neither Whitman nor CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano would say where or when al-Iraqi was captured or by whom.
A US intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said the Iraqi man had been captured late last year in an operation that involved many people in more than one country.
CIA Director Michael Hayden wrote in a note to agency employees on Friday that the capture was a significant victory, and the CIA played a crucial role in efforts to locate al-Iraqi, an agency official who saw the note said.
In Pakistan, Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao described the arrest of al-Iraqi as a welcome development but gave no indication that Pakistan played a role.
CIA spokesman Gimigliano called al-Iraqi "a veteran jihadist" and said the capture was good news.
He said of al-Qaeda and the capture: "It is still an extremely dangerous group. But it is evidence of success in terms of eroding their leadership."
It was not until last September that Bush acknowledged the CIA use of secret prisons around the world.
Officials said on Friday that al-Iraqi was captured well after that, but John Sifton of Human Rights Watch in New York said he was skeptical.
After Bush's announcement, Sifton said: "We thought there were others who remained in CIA custody or, if they weren't, they were temporarily being held in some sort of proxy custody by someone else."
His group says it has a list of 16 additional people who had been in CIA custody at some time and have not been accounted for.
The CIA has not commented on the list.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
ECONOMIC BOOST: Should the more than 23 million people eligible for the NT$10,000 handouts spend them the same way as in 2023, GDP could rise 0.5 percent, an official said Universal cash handouts of NT$10,000 (US$330) are to be disbursed late next month at the earliest — including to permanent residents and foreign residents married to Taiwanese — pending legislative approval, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The Executive Yuan yesterday approved the Special Act for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience in Response to International Circumstances (因應國際情勢強化經濟社會及民生國安韌性特別條例). The NT$550 billion special budget includes NT$236 billion for the cash handouts, plus an additional NT$20 billion set aside as reserve funds, expected to be used to support industries. Handouts might begin one month after the bill is promulgated and would be completed within
NO CHANGE: The TRA makes clear that the US does not consider the status of Taiwan to have been determined by WWII-era documents, a former AIT deputy director said The American Institute in Taiwan’s (AIT) comments that World War-II era documents do not determine Taiwan’s political status accurately conveyed the US’ stance, the US Department of State said. An AIT spokesperson on Saturday said that a Chinese official mischaracterized World War II-era documents as stating that Taiwan was ceded to the China. The remarks from the US’ de facto embassy in Taiwan drew criticism from the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, whose director said the comments put Taiwan in danger. The Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday reported that a US State Department spokesperson confirmed the AIT’s position. They added that the US would continue to
IMPORTANT BACKER: China seeks to expel US influence from the Indo-Pacific region and supplant Washington as the global leader, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said China is preparing for war to seize Taiwan, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said in Washington on Friday, warning that Taiwan’s fall would trigger a regional “domino effect” endangering US security. In a speech titled “Maintaining the Peaceful and Stable Status Quo Across the Taiwan Strait is in Line with the Shared Interests of Taiwan and the United States,” Chiu said Taiwan’s strategic importance is “closely tied” to US interests. Geopolitically, Taiwan sits in a “core position” in the first island chain — an arc stretching from Japan, through Taiwan and the Philippines, to Borneo, which is shared by
RSS