Asad Ullah (detainee)

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File:Camp Iguana dormitory.jpg

Dormitory where Asadullah Abdul Rahman, Naquibullah and Mohammed Ismail lived.^{[citation needed]} A guard slept in the fourth bed.^{[citation needed]}

File:Camp Iguana living area.jpg

This lounge served as the school room and rec room for the three youths held in Camp Iguana stayed.^{[citation needed]} The youths were allowed to play video games or watch videos on the lounge's flat screen when their lessons were over.^{[citation needed]}

File:Camp Iguana Recreation Yard -b.jpg

The youths who were held in Camp Iguana reported having unusually close relationships with their guards,^{[citation needed]} including playing soccer in their recreation yard -- the only captives provided a view of the ocean.^{[citation needed]}

Asad Ullah is a young Afghani formally held at Camp Iguana in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Asad and his friends and supporters claim that he was twelve years old (or younger) when he was arrested by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. The military, however, believe him to have been around fifteen years old. Asad was arrested in the Musawal compound of the Afghani warlord Sammoud in 2002. The military says that he was being trained as a gunman for an al-Qaeda-related group. Before he was arrested, he claims he was sold into sexual slavery to a militia leader.

After his arrest, Asadullah was possibly held at the U.S. base in Gardez, where he alleges that he was beaten. At some point, Asadullah was transferred to the air base at Bagram, and flown to Guantanamo Bay. After pressure from the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, he was released on January 29, 2004, having been held by the U.S. for seventeen months, and returned to Khoja Angur. The Red Crescent state that Asadullah's family were not informed that their son had been arrested until seven months after the event, and then only by a Red Crescent official.

Unusually for released detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Asadullah appears to have nothing but praise for the place. He claims to have played sports, learned to play chess and learned Pashto, English, Arabic, mathematics, science, art and Islam while at Guantanamo Bay. Various organisations criticized the detainment of minors like Asadullah. However, Pentagon spokeswoman Barbara Burfeind responded: "The Taliban leadership directed younger members to counterattack the U.S. forces in the area. The juveniles were removed from the battlefield to prevent further harm to U.S. forces and to themselves".

When the Department of Defense exhausted its legal appeals, and was forced, on May 15, 2006, to comply with a court order to release a full list of the names of all the detainees who had been in military custody at Guantanamo, Asadullah Abdul Rahman's name was absent. They did list an individual they called Asad Ullah, who they estimated had been born in 1988, in Paktia Province, Afghanistan. Asad Ullah's Guantanamo ID was 912. Fox News March 10, 2004 article about Asadullah Abdul Rahman refers to him simply as "Asad Ullah".

Main article: minors detained in the global war on terror

Joint Task Force Guantanamo records indicate that Asadullah was five foot two inches tall when he arrived at Guantanamo in March 2003, and that he weighed 113 pounds. JTF-GTMO records indicate he weighed 136 pounds when he was returned to Afghanistan in January 2004. JTF-GTMO records indicate he refused to have himself weighed in February and March 2004—after he had already been returned to Afghanistan.

See also

• Naqib Ullah
• Mohammed Ismail

External links

• UK Guardian:Cuba? It was great, say boys freed from US prison camp
• San Francisco Chronicle article
• Who They Are: News Coverage of the Guantanamo Bay Detainees by Camille Gerwin
• Guantánamo's Children: Military and Diplomatic Testimonies
• New York Times article - 3 Afghan Youths Question U.S. Captivity

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