U.S. Special Operations forces are not required to vet for past human rights violations by the foreign troops they arm and train as surrogates, newly disclosed documents show. While the gap in rules governing vetting for a counterterrorism program have previously been reported based on anonymous sources, the documents provide official confirmation. Under the program, […]
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GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba — In court this week, a psychologist who waterboarded prisoners for the Central Intelligence Agency rolled up a towel, wrapped it around the neck of a criminal defense lawyer, and slowly pulled the lawyer toward him and up on her toes — a dramatic re-enactment of practices used on a Saudi detainee […]
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SOGAKOPE, Ghana — Troops clad in black jumped out of motorboats near a riverside resort and made their way along a wood-slat fence to their objective: a building where terrorists had seized a high-level government official. Shots rang out and the troops returned fire. They soon emerged from the one-story structure with the freed hostage, […]
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BALEDOGLE, Somalia — The promise and perils of America’s counterterrorism campaign were on full display at a remote training base in central Somalia. It was graduation day for 346 recruits who would join an elite Somali commando unit trained by the State Department, advised by U.S. Special Operations forces, and backed by American air power. […]
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GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba — Over the years, the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of waterboarding and other forms of torture in its secret overseas prisons after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has been revealed in government leaks, testimony and a damning Senate investigation. But an expert’s testimony this week in pretrial hearings at Guantánamo Bay offered […]
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BELIZE CITY — On his first day of freedom, the former Guantánamo Bay prisoner Majid Khan prayed without anyone watching him for the first time in two decades. He ate a lunch of fresh fish from the Caribbean with his new hosts, fumbled with his first smartphone, sipped a nonalcoholic piña colada with his lawyers and […]
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In the nine years that he led Pakistan, Gen. Pervez Musharraf sometimes called himself a “tightrope walker” — someone who could balance opposing forces, or straddle Pakistan’s dizzying political and ideological divides. Contradictions abounded. Mr. Musharraf was the darling of the West who played footsie with the Taliban; he was the whiskey-swilling liberal who made […]
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WASHINGTON — Bilal al-Sudani was no stranger to American counterterrorism officials. Before joining the Islamic State affiliate in Somalia, Mr. al-Sudani was subjected to punitive sanctions by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2012 for his involvement with Al Shabab, Al Qaeda’s branch in the East African country. But it wasn’t until American officials started digging […]
Read MoreA damning 2014 Senate investigation of the covert program disclosed what the C.I.A. did to Mr. Khan when he went on a hunger strike in his second year of detention: His captors “infused” a purée of pasta, sauce, nuts, raisins and hummus into his rectum. His lawyers called it rape. At his sentencing in 2021, […]
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