Minors detained in the War on Terror

File:Minors held in Guantanamo.jpg

Two protesters in Toronto demonstrate against the American policy of holding child soldiers as enemy combatants in Guantanamo Bay.

The United States has disputed the number of minors detained in the global War on Terror.

Elaine Chao, the US Secretary of Labor, has spoken about the responsibility to give child soldiers special treatment and to provide help for them to re-integrate into society. She announced a $3 million program to help re-integrate child-soldiers in Afghanistan into Afghan society.

However, the Department of Defense did not follow the policy Secretary Chao cited. They stated that they only considered a captive they suspected had been a combatant to be a minor if he or she were under sixteen years old.

Three children who had been detained with adults, and treated and interrogated as if they were adults, at the Bagram Collection Point were provided with more humane conditions at Camp Iguana. But half a dozen teenagers who should have been considered minors even by the DoD's more stringent standards were not only detained with adults, and not provided with schooling, but reported being punished by long periods in isolation and subjected to abusive interrogation.

On May 15, 2006 the Department of Defense exhausted its legal appeals and published a list of the names, ages, or estimated dates of birth of all the detainees who had been detained in military custody in the Guantanamo Bay detainment camps.

May 2008 report to the United Nations

On May 15, 2008 the American Civil Liberties Union published a report that the Bush Presidency had submitted to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. The report stated that the USA had apprehended 2500 juveniles—2400 of them in Iraq. The report stated that a total of ten juveniles had been held in the Bagram Theater Detention Facility. The report stated that a total of eight juveniles had been held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps.

Sandra Hodgkinson the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs defended the report, claiming "...the lower figure was based on the best information in U.S. databases."

List of known minors detained in the global war on terror

Name	Date of Birth	Notes
Abdul Qudus	1988 (est.)	Youngest person ever detained at Guantanamo Bay.
Asad Ullah	1988 (est.)	Released from Camp Iguana on January 28, 2004
Naqib Ullah	1988 (est.)	Released from Camp Iguana on January 28, 2004
Omar Khadr	September 19, 1986	Captured when he was fifteen. Claims long periods in isolation. Claims abusive interrogation, beatings.
Yussef Mohammed Mubarak Al Shihri	September 8, 1986
Mohammed el Gharani	1986 (est.)	Clive Stafford Smith identified Al Qarani as one of a dozen teenage boys held in the adult portion of the prison. Al Qarani was accused of plotting with Abu Qatada, in London, in 1999—when he was a 12 year old, living with his parents, in Saudi Arabia. Chito Peppler, a Pentagon spokesman, said the date referred to when 'Abu Qatada became active.' He maintained that it was possible that Gharani had been a part of the cell before his arrest at 14.
Mohammed Omar	1986 (est.)
Shams Ullah	1986 (est.)	Captured together with his uncle Bostan Karim, his father, his uncle, and a cousin, based on allegations from his uncle Karim's partner Abaidullah, during his interrogation. Abaidullah has recanted the allegations he leveled when he was detained at Bagram, claiming they were the result of coercive interrogation techniques.
Hassan Mohammed Ali Bin Attash	1985 (est.)	Bin Attash is reported to have been captured on September 10, 2002, and to have been imprisoned in both "the dark prison" and in Jordan, where he was hung upside down and beaten on the soles of his feet, prior to his transportation to Guantanamo. Guantanamo spokesmen Lieutenant Commander Chito Peppler, who insisted, "US policy requires all detainees to be treated humanely,"
Mahbub Rahman	1985 (est.)	Rahman was alleged to have spied on American forces, and to have participated in the attack on Firebase Salerno. Rahman testified to his Tribunal that he was a teenage Madrassa student who got in a fight with a man who bragged about murdering his brother. He shot this man in the leg, and fled with his gun. He was captured while on his return to his family, and he claimed all the allegations against him were lies.
Mohamed Jawad	1985 (est.)	Jawad accepted what he thought was going to be an extremely lucrative job clearing land mines. He wanted to get his mother's permission first, but she wasn't home. When his employers had taken him to Afghanistan they gave him mind-altering drugs, that made him hallucinate, and interfered with his ability to think straight. Jawad was accused of participating in a grenade attack on an American vehicle. Jawad acknowledged that while in his dazed state one of his new companions handed him two objects to hold, and said he would return to get them. He says he took them out of his pocket, so he could get out some money to pay for some raisins, only to have the shopkeeper tell him they were bombs, and that he must run and throw them in the river. He rushed to obey, while the shopkeeper yelled out a warning to people to avoid him, because he had a bomb. He was captured while complying with the shop-keepers instructions.
Peta Muhammed	1985 (est.)
Abd Al Razzaq Abdallah Ibrahim Al Tamini	January 18, 1984	Al Tamini acknowledged traveling to Afghanistan to fight the Northern Alliance. Al Tamini said that before traveling to Afghanistan he had been warned to steer clear of all the competing organizations, so he knew nothing about al Qaida until after he was captured.
Khalil Rahman Hafez	January 20, 1984	Hafez acknowledged receiving training from the Taliban, and serving on the front lines when he was sixteen years old.
Abdullah D. Kafkas	January 23, 1984
Mohammed Ayub	April 15, 1984	Ayub denied participating in hostilities. He received room and board in return for working on a construction project.
Yasser Talal Al Zahrani	September 22, 1984	Reportedly had been "...accused by the U.S. of being a frontline fighter for the Taliban who facilitated weapons purchases for offensives against U.S. and coalition forces." Reported to have committed suicide on June 10, 2006.
Sultan Ahmad	November 1, 1984
Abdul Salam Gaithan Mureef Al Shehry	December 14, 1984	Accused of accepting military training, fighting on the front line, being captured near Mazari Sharif, and having his name found on a suspicious list of captured al Qaida members. Testified he flew to Pakistan prior to September 11, for medical treatment. While he was there he decided to make a side trip to Afghanistan, while waiting for his next medical appointment, only to find himself trapped in Afghanistan when the border was closed when the USA was attacked on September 11. Wrote a letter to his father, when he turned 18, asking his father to find him a wife. Reported to be the youngest detainee still in Guantanamo
Faris Muslim Al Ansari	1984 (est.)	Accused of receiving military training, fighting near Tora Bora, and trying to escape to Pakistan without identity papers. Al Ansari testified that his father was a Yemeni, who had fought against the Soviets, but he himself knew nothing about weapons, had never used one, or trained on one, and could only speak a little Pashtu. Al Ansari testified he was too young to have ever needed identity papers.
Mohammed Ismail	1984 (est.)
Qari Esmhatulla	1984 (est.)
Sajin Urayman	1984 (est.)
Abdul Khaled Ahmed Sahleh Al Bedani	1984 (est.)	The allegations against Al Bedani note that he tried to leave Afghanistan as soon as he learned about the al Qaeda attacks on America.
Ahmed Abdul Qader	1984 (est.)	Qader was accused of being affiliated with al Wafa. Qader testified that he was a University student in Pakistan, who made a brief trip to Afghanistan to do some ad-hoc humanitarian work. He pointed out that he had returned from this brief trip prior to the attacks on September 11, 2001.
Ali Yahya Mahdi Al Raimi	1984 (est.)	Al Raimi acknowledged attending the al Farouq training camp. He said he didn't want to move to Afghanistan with his parents, and his father agreed he could go home to Yemen—if he spent two months in Afghanistan, and attended the training camp. Al Raimi said he was only at the camp for four days, and had only learned how to disassemble and clean the AK-47.
Ibrahim Umar Ali Al Umar	1984 (est.)
Kay Fiyatullah	1984 (est.)
Khalid Malu Shia al Ghatani	1984 (est.)	Several of the allegations against Al Ghatani stated that his name, or "known alias", were found on several suspicious lists.
Muhammad Surur Dakhilallah Al Utaybi	1984 (est.)	Accused of receiving military training in Afghanistan so he could fight against the Northern Alliance. Acknowledged receiving a limited amount of military training, but it was prompted by curiosity, not an intention to fight. Claimed he had been sent to Afghanistan to look for and bring back a relative who had gone missing.
Abdulrahim Kerimbakiev	January 4, 1983	Kerimbakiev was accused of having family ties to known terrorists in Pakistan, and traveling to Afghanistan with his family. Kerimbakiev denied having any relatives in Pakistan whatsoever. He was unable to explain why the Taliban encouraged his family to immigrate.
Zafar Iqbal	March 1, 1983	Iqbal was one of 17 Pakistanis freed from Pakistani custody, approximately seven months after being repatriated from Guantanamo to Pakistan.June 28, 2005.
Mohammed Jayed Sebai	April 1, 1983
Ali Bin Ali Aleh	April 15, 1983
Mohammed Mohammed Hassen	April 20, 1983	Accused of being captured at the ‘Crescent Mill’ guesthouse in Faisalabad, Accused of having his photo identified by a "senior al Qaida lieutenant", as someone he might have seen in Afghanistan. Hassen testified he was captured in his Universitory dormitory at Salafi University in Faisalabad, and that he had never been to Afghanistan.
Abdallah Tohtasinovich Magrupov	May 14, 1983	Magrupov was accused of visiting Pakistan madrassas, staying in a house in Kabul owned by the Taliban, traveling with two men who were cooks for the Taliban, and being present in Afghanistan when the US bombing campaign began. Magrupov was released on December 21, 2006, after five years of detention.
Fahd Muhammed Abdullah Al Fouzan	December 1, 1983	Accused of spending ten months in Afghanistan in 1999, and return there after September 11, 2001. Accused of attending the Abu Nasir military camp in Afghanistan. Accused of working for the Al-Harmayn Charitable Institute [sic]. Al Fouzan's name was found on a list intelligence analysts regard as suspicious.
Faruq Ali Ahmed	December 1, 1983	Accused of giving his passport to a member of the Taliban, of traveling with a member of the Taliban, and of staying in a Taliban house. Another justification intelligence analysts thought favored his continued detention is that another captive had said, during his interrogation, he once overheard the name "Faruq" uttered by someone using a walkie-talkie.
Mohammed Ishaq	1983 (est.)
Sahkhrukh Hamiduva	1983 (est.)	Accused of traveling to Afghanistan to engage in jihad against the Northern Alliance. Testified he traveled to Afghanistan as a refugee, fleeing political violence in Uzbekistan.
Tariqe Shallah Hassan Al Harbi	1983 (est.)
Zakim Shah	1983 (est.)

See also

• Military use of children

External links

• The Pentagon Can’t Count: 22 Juveniles Held at Guantánamo
• U.S. Has Detained 2,500 Juveniles as Enemy Combatants
• Guantánamo: pain and distress for thousands of children