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Saudi denies recruiting Americans for al-Qaeda training
The alleged recruiter of six Yemeni-Americans from upstate New York who went to al Qaeda military training camps in the summer of 2001 denies recruiting the men or being connected to the terrorist organization linked to the September 11 attacks.Juma Mohammed Abdul Latif al-Dosari, a Saudi who has been in custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since his capture by U.S. forces near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, has told a military tribunal reviewing his status that the accusation "that I was recruiting for al Qaeda is not true," according to newly unclassified documents released to a federal court. Al-Dosari's file is among more than 60 case files of hundreds of Guantanamo detainees that have been deposited with the U.S District Court in Washington, which is handling lawsuits challenging the imprisonments. The files were obtained and posted on the Internet by The Associated Press. (Detainees judge U.S. justice) According to the documents, the U.S. Navy told an enemy combatant status review board that al-Dosari is a member of al Qaeda who trained at an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan as early as 1989, learning how to use an AK-47 assault rifle. Al-Dosari allegedly fought with Muslims in Bosnia in 1995 and with Arabs fighting Russian soldiers in Chechnya in 1996, according to evidence presented to the tribunal by a Navy lawyer. Saudi authorities detained al-Dosari for questioning in the June 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers military housing that killed 19 Americans. Al-Dosari returned to Afghanistan in 2001 and fought with al Qaeda against a U.S. led assault in Tora Bora, according to the Navy. He surrendered to Pakistani authorities later in that year. "I am not an enemy of the United States," al-Dosari told his Guantanamo interrogators last December, according to the case file. "I am not a member of al Qaeda. I did not encourage anyone to go fight with al Qaeda, and I had no relationship with al Qaeda," he said. He denied that his travels to Bosnia were for militant activities, according to the interview notes in the case file. "I didn't go to Bosnia for jihad. I went there for a blonde white female, to get married," he said. He also denied that his 1996 trip to Azerbaijan was a stop en route to Chechnya. "My intention was to sight-see in Azerbaijan because I had never been there before," al-Dosari said. "I went to Azerbaijan to go back to Saudi Arabia, not to go to Chechnya." A three-person military tribunal upheld al-Dosari's detention after a hearing he chose not to attend. The hearings were prompted by a Supreme Court decision requiring the military to provide a forum for 550 foreign nationals detained as terrorism suspects to hear evidence behind their detention and challenge it. "The detainee is properly classified as an enemy combatant and is a member of al Qaeda, that had affiliation with, and was supportive of Taliban forces engaged in hostilities against the United States," the panel found regarding al-Dosari, according to the court documents. The lead recruiter of Buffalo Six, a Saudi born in Buffalo named Kamal Derwish, was killed in November 2002 by a CIA-launched Predator missile attack on al Qaeda operatives in Yemen. Al-Dosari, believed to be a friend of Derwish, lived for six months in Bloomington, Ind., and visited Lackawanna, New York, in 2001, speaking at the local mosque and staying with one of the men who later went to Afghanistan. The six recruits from Lackawanna, a small city five miles from Buffalo, individually pleaded guilty to terrorism-related charges in 2003 and are serving seven- to 10-year sentences in federal prison. A seventh man who allegedly traveled with the group to Afghanistan, Jaber Elbaneh, is still at large, and the U.S. government is offering $5 million for information leading to his arrest. Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-04-13 |
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