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Ruhal Ahmed	Ruhal Ahmed	Taliban	Afghanistan/South Asia	British	Captured	Cannon Fodder	20020129
		from Tipton, West Midlands - was detained in Kandahar after being tricked to leave a hospital where he was holed up with grenades, believing he was to be handed over to the International Red Cross
	Ruhal Ahmed	al-Qaeda	Britain				20040310

Home Front: WoT

Who Is Behind The "Close-Gitmo" Push?

2014-01-14

In short, the other red-green alliance: Communists and jihadis, each quite certain it is the senior partner. [FoxNews] The key players: Amnesia Amnesty International. Along with Human Rights Watch ... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world... , Amnesia Amnesty International was revealed as partner organization to Al Karama, a human rights ...not to be confused with individual rights, mind you... non-profit run by Qatar's Abdul Rahman Omeir Al-Naimi. Al-Naimi was recently exposed by the U.S. Treasury Department in December 2013 as a long-term major financier of Al Qaeda. According to an expose by Eli Lake in the Daily Beast, "Terrorists for Human Rights," the Treasury Department's designation said he, "oversaw the transfer of hundreds of thousands of dollars to Al Qaeda and its affiliates in Iraq, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen over the last 11 years." Center for Constitutional Rights. CCR was founded by far-left civil rights lawyer William Kunstler in the 1960s, a man who told the press his goal was to "destroy society from within." Kunstler represented the "Chicago 7," a group that was charged with conspiracy to start a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and later he defended domestic bad boy/terror groups like the Black Panthers, Weather Underground, and Attica Prison Rioters. CCR is currently funded by groups like the "1848 Foundation," named after the year Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto was published and revolutions swept through Europe. Kunstler would be proud of CCR's signature work over the past decade in coordinating the "Gitmo Bar Association" of 500 lawyers representing detainees. Reprieve. A British organization led by blogger Andy Worthington, it pressures release of British citizens and residents. Æthiopia's Binyam Mohammed, a British resident, allegedly plotted to blow up high rise apartment buildings in the U.S. with a dirty bomb; Ruhal Ahmed, Asif Iqbal, and Shafiq Rasul, a.k.a., the Tipton Three, ethnic Paks went to fight for jihad in Afghanistan but were caught by the Northern Alliance in Nov. 2001; and Shaker Aamer, a Saudi citizen with British residence, alleged to have led a unit of Al Qaeda gunnies in Tora Bora, and reportedly a former close associate of Osama Bin Laden, shoe-bomber Richard Reid and 20th hijacker, Zacharias Moussaoui. So, pro-Brit, a good thing. But brainlessly undiscriminating, which is not at all a compliment. World Can't Wait. This organization is believed to have been founded by members and supporters of the Revolutionary Communist Party & Anarchists. It organized at least 24,000 supporters during Iraq War, including actor Sean Penn and anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan. Jason Leopold. Leopold is a former Los Angeles Times investigative journalist with a checkered past. According to Fox News media critic Howard Kurtz, writing in a 2005 Washington Post feature, "Leopold says he engaged in 'lying, cheating and backstabbing,' is a former cocaine addict, served time for grand larceny, repeatedly tried to kill himself and has battled mental illness his whole life."

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Home Front: WoT

AC/DC songs and other music used as Guantanamo torture tool by US government

2009-10-23

WHAT do Neil Diamond, AC/DC, Marilyn Manson, Eminem, Christina Aguilera and Don McLean have in common? They were all used as instruments of torture by the US government. Former Guantanamo guards and detainees have said that these big names are among 35 artists whose music was used as a means of torture at the detention facility. Others on the list include Tupac Shakur, Pink, Bruce Springsteen and The Bee Gees. It is also alleged that the theme from Sesame Street was played to unnerve inmates. See the full list HERE In reaction to the news, bands such as R.E.M. and Pearl Jam are petitioning the US Government to release a full list of music that has been used as a means of torture in US prisons and military detention centres, CNN reports. “We have spent the past 30 years supporting causes related to peace and justice. To now learn that some of our friends’ music may have been used as part of the torture tactics without their consent or knowledge is horrific,” R.E.M. said in a statement. “It's anti-American, period.” The National Security Archive, who has filed a Freedom of Information request on behalf of the artists, said they have approached several agencies within the US Department of Defence to find out the names of all the artists whose music was used. Their request asks for the disclosure of documents “concerning the use of loud music during detention and/or as a technique to interrogate detainees at US-operated prison facilities used in its War on Terror at Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan during 2002-the present.” The Pentagon has not yet responded to allegations of torture involving music, however Joint Task Force Guantanamo spokeswoman Maj. Diana Haynie says that loud music has not been used at the detention centre since 2003. Former Guantanamo detainee Ruhal Ahmed, one of several who has filed a lawsuit against the US government, says that he was subjected to hours of music abuse. “It's very scary to think that you might go crazy because of the music, because of the loud noise.”

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Britain

Freed Guantanamo detainees to sue British intelligence

2008-04-20

Eight men freed from Guantanamo Bay are looking to sue the British intelligence services for damages, the Daily Mail said on Saturday citing lawyers and one of the former detainees. Came up with that idea all on their own, of course, no help at all from the progressive types ... The daily newspaper said two separate writs had been issued on behalf of the eight - five British nationals and three with residency rights - claiming the complicity of the domestic and overseas security services with the Americans. Lawyers acting on behalf of Libyan national Omar Deghayes, Jordanian Jamil el-Banna and Bisher al-Rawi, an Iraqi, have issued the first writ at London’s High Court. Deghayes and el-Banna were released from the US-run facility in Cuba last December. Al Rawi was set free earlier this year. Spain dropped an attempt to extradite them to face terrorism charges in March. The second writ is on behalf of British nationals Moazzam Begg, from Birmingham, west central England, a trio of friends from nearby Tipton, Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Ruhal Ahmed, and Londoner Richard Belmar. The three men from Tipton unsuccessfully sued their former captors for alleged human and religious rights violations in US courts. The case is now being taken to the US Supreme Court. Begg was quoted as saying that the case would centre on British intelligence’s “general behaviour and complicity in the abuse of British citizens’ from their detention, interrogation and transfer to Guantanamo”. Lawyer Irene Membhard, from London law firm Birnberg Pierce, confirmed to the newspaper that the writs had been issued. “Service is not imminent but watch this space within the next two months,” she was quoted as saying.

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Britain

Court rules Guantanamo Brits can sue

2006-05-09

A US court has ruled four Britons can take court action claiming their religious freedoms were infringed while they were detainees at Guantanamo. The four, who were released in 2004 without any charges, are claiming $US10 million ($13.04 million) in damages from US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior military officials. A US District Court in Washington ruled yesterday action could go ahead under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which says US government officials must not stop any person carrying out their religious beliefs. The action by Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Ruhal Ahmed and Jamal al-Harith also alleges the Pentagon chain of command authorised and condoned torture and other mistreatment. The US government argued at a hearing that the action should be dismissed. But Judge Ricardo Urbina ruled the Britons' claims that they were mistreated and stopped from practicing their religion while incarcerated at the Guantanamo Naval Base could proceed under the 1993 act. His decision said the allegation was that US government officials committed a "direct affront to one of this nation's most cherished constitutional traditions". US courts have previously dismissed actions brought on behalf of Guantanamo detainees under the Geneva conventions and other actions claiming the behaviour of the US military at Guantanamo had been unconstitutional. The Supreme Court is currently considering a case challenging the legality of military tribunals held at the base. "Mr Rasul and the other plaintiffs in this case were denied basic rights to worship as part of a systematic attempt to denigrate them as human beings," said their lead lawyer Eric Lewis. "Judge Urbina's decision sends a strong message that Secretary Rumsfeld and the Generals who implemented these policies will be held accountable," said Mr Lewis.

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Home Front: WoT

Films of Subduing of Guant’o Prisoners Becoming an Issue

2004-05-17

Dozens of videotapes of American guards allegedly engaged in brutal attacks on Guantanamo Bay detainees have been stored and catalogued at the camp, an investigation by The Observer has revealed. The disclosures, made in an interview with Tarek Dergoul, the fifth British prisoner freed last March, who has been too traumatised to speak until now, prompted demands last night by senior politicians on both sides of the Atlantic to make the videos available immediately. ... Dergoul tells of one assault by a five-man ERF in shocking terms: ’They pepper-sprayed me in the face, and I started vomiting. They pinned me down and attacked me, poking their fingers in my eyes, and forced my head into the toilet pan and flushed. ’They tied me up like a beast and then they were kneeling on me, kicking and punching. Finally they dragged me out of the cell in chains, into the rec[reation] yard, and shaved my beard, my hair, my eyebrows.’ After their release last March, Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Ruhal Ahmed, the so-called Tipton Three from Staffordshire, told of similar ERF attacks. Rasul said they led to a new verb being coined by detainees: ’to be ERFed’. That, he said, meant being slammed against a floor by a soldier wielding a riot shield, pinned to the ground and beaten up by five armed men. However, it is Dergoul who now reveals that every time the ERFs were deployed, a sixth team member recorded on digital video everything that happened. Lieutenant Colonel Leon Sumpter, the Guantanamo Joint Task Force spokesman, confirmed this last night, saying all ERF actions were filmed so they could be ’reviewed’ by senior officers. All the tapes are kept in an archive there, he said. He refused to say how many times the ERF squads had been used and would not discuss their training or rules of engagement, saying: ’We do not discuss operational aspects of the Joint Task Force mission.’ The Observer can also now disclose that a British military interrogator posted to the now notorious Abu Ghraib abuse jail raised the alarm about maltreatment of detainees by US troops as long ago as last March. While ministers insisted last week that the three Britons working in the jail did not see any of the systematic and sadistic abuse, an unnamed lieutenant - a debriefer trained to deal only with co-operative witnesses - made an official complaint to US authorities after seeing what he considered to be ’rough handling’ of prisoners. ... In London, Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat deputy leader, said: ’The Government must demand that these videos be delivered up, and the truth of these very serious allegations properly determined once and for all. ’The videos provide an unequalled opportunity to check the veracity of what Mr Dergoul and the other former detainees are saying.’

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Britain

More Britons allege Guantanamo beatings

2004-03-14

Three Britons released from the Guantanamo Bay detention centre say they were regularly beaten while in US custody, backing similar allegations by two other British detainees. I used to pop down twice a week to get in a few licks, myself... Asif Iqbal, Ruhal Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul, friends from the town of Tipton in central England, say they were regularly mistreated from the moment they were handed over to US forces in Afghanistan in late 2001. After being taken to a US detention centre in the Afghan city of Kandahar, they were forced to kneel bent forwards for hours with their foreheads touching the ground, Mr Rasul told The Observer newspaper. "I lifted my head up slightly because I was really in pain. The sergeant came up behind me, kicked my legs from underneath me, then knelt on my back," he said. "They took me outside and searched me while one man was sitting on me, kicking and punching." Oh, yeah. I'm convinced. The three childhood friends, aged between 22 and 26, say they had gone to Pakistan for Mr Iqbal's wedding, arranged by his family, before going into Afghanistan to help arrange humanitarian aid. "Ma'am, we're here with the Humanitarian Aid NGO. Here's your arms and ammunition. And, oh yeah. Here's some crackers." There they were captured by the US-backed Northern Alliance and almost died after hundreds of prisoners were forced into lorry containers, the majority of whom suffocated. Who the hell wrote this? The shipping containers would have been after the siege of Konduz. The majority didn't suffocate, unfortunately. The trio's allegations of US mistreatment follow similar claims made earlier this week by two other British returnees. Tarek Dergoul, a 26-year-old former care worker from east London, said he had endured "botched medical treatment, interrogation at gunpoint, beatings and inhuman conditions". Another released Briton, 37-year-old website designer Jamal al-Harith, said in a newspaper interview that he had experienced beatings and degrading treatment during his two years at the jail. Tell 'em about the hookers, Jamal... US Secretary of State Colin Powell told a British television program that also interviewed Mr Harith that the charges are "unlikely". The five British men flew home on Tuesday from Camp Delta, the high-security camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba where the United States is holding about 650 suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Despite their lengthy detention and although four of the men were briefly held by British police when they returned, none has been charged with any crimes.

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Britain

Five Britons Freed From Guantanamo

2004-03-10

Five British nationals were on their way home yesterday from the US detention camp in Cuba for suspected Al-Qaeda and Taleban fighters, leaving behind four compatriots to face possible trial by a US military court for terrorist activities. The five were crossing the North Atlantic from Guantanamo Bay aboard a Royal Air Force C-17 transport plane, accompanied by officers of the Metropolitan Police anti-terrorist squad, a police statement said. They were expected to touch down at RAF Northolt Air Base, northwest of London, to be taken to the high security Paddington Green police station in the British capital for questioning. “Two independent observers, one from the Muslim community, are on the flight which is also being videoed by police,” London’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement that anticipated concern about the five men’s treatment. I'll bet the taxpayers paid for their tickets, too. Oh, how solicitous we are! Eighty-eight other prisoners of various nationalities have been released from Guantanamo Bay, and a dozen others transferred to their home countries for continued detention, including seven Russians turned over on March 1. The five being repatriated to Britain are Ruhal Ahmed, Asif Iqbal, Shafiq Rasul, Tarek Dergoul and Jamal Al-Harith. Good British names, every one. None o' those Percy's and Cecils and Nigels, by Gawd! Still in Guantanamo Bay are Feroz Abbasi, Moazzam Begg, Martin Mubanga and Richard Belmar, who according to Home Secretary David Blunkett had been captured in the “combat zone” in Afghanistan.

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Terror Networks

Brit al-Qaeda heroes are street thugs with passports

2002-01-29

TWO of the Britons being held by US forces have criminal convictions for violence. Asif Iqbal and Ruhal Ahmed were convicted after a 16-year-old Asian was attacked with hammers and bottles. Ahmed and Iqbal were fined £500 at Wolverhampton Crown Court in 1998 and had to do 150 hours community service after Rahim Rashid, now 19, of Dudley, was scarred for life in an attack in which he was kicked in the head and beaten. His fellow suspect, Rasul, had tried to recruit friends to fight with him in Afghanistan. One neighbour was quoted: “It is ridiculous to suggest that he was brainwashed after going to Pakistan. He was preaching jihad while still in the West.” Ahmed lived a few hundred yards from Rasul, 24, and Iqbal, 20. All three went to Alexandra High School in Tipton and played in a local football team. Ahmed’s mother, Shalehah Begum, speaking to the local newspaper from her home in Tipton, said that her son was visiting relatives in Bangladesh. Wonder how many of the Arabians, Paks, Chechens and other sweepings have the same kind of Clockwork Orange background?

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Terror Networks

Kandahar hospital detainee is a Brit

2002-01-29

A fourth suspected British al-Qa'eda was being questioned by MI6 agents in Afghanistan, as Downing Street said the United States might decide to send them to Britain for trial. Ruhal Ahmed, 20 - who, like two fellow prisoners, comes from Tipton, West Midlands - was detained last week in Kandahar after being tricked to leave a hospital believing he was to be handed over to the International Red Cross. Instead, he was seized by US special forces and passed to MI6 officers, who hoped to establish how extensive British links with al-Qa'eda were. Good idea. Maybe the Mirror could put him up until his trial comes around.

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