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Detainees hold onto a fence at Camp 4 of the maximum security prison Camp Delta at Guantanamo Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in August 2004.
Guantanamo: Beyond the Law
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Rather than producing valuable intelligence or keeping terror suspects off the streets, the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base practices radicalized detainees, and for many served as a "school for Jihad," or holy war.
Pool image by Mark Wilson / Getty Images / MCT
Mohammed Akhtiar sits in a tribal office compound in Gardez, Afghanistan, during an interview in April 2007.
Akhtiar was among the first of more than 770 terrorism suspects who were imprisoned at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Tom Lasseter /MCT
A detainee is escorted to an interrogation room at the Camp Delta detention facility at the U.S. Marine Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on July 7, 2004.
Pete Souza / Chicago Tribune / MCT
Ghalib Hassan, pictured during an interview in Jalalabad in April 2008, was a district chief, a man who risked his life to help the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province.
It is believed that local tribal leaders fed false information about Hassan through local informants used by American troops because they were offended by his brusque style.
Travis Heying / Wichita Eagle / MCT
Jordanian Khaled al Asmr was declared not to be an enemy combatant after a 2004 U.S. military tribunal at Guantanamo.
Travis Heying / Wichita Eagle / MCT
Al Asmr said he'd known some al Qaida leaders, but that was more than 15 years earlier, during the U.S.-backed Afghan uprising against the Soviets.
Travis Heying / Wichita Eagle / MCT
The former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef was known as the "King of Guantanamo" by his fellow inmates and helped stage hunger strikes at the prison. He was released in 2005.
Travis Heying / Wichita Eagle / MCT
"A lot of our friends are working against the Americans now, because if you torture someone without any reason, what do you expect?" said Issa Khan, a 33-year-old Pakistani and former detainee who was interviewed in Islamabad in July 2007.
Tom Lasseter / MCT
Issa Khan adds, "Many people who were in Guantanamo are now working with the Taliban."
Tom Lasseter / MCT
Abdul Zuhoor, an Afghan detainee who spent time in Camp Four, said that radical detainees used the system to their full advantage at Guantanamo.
Tom Lasseter / MCT
Speaking during an interview in his hometown of Charikar, Afghanistan, Zuhoor said those detainees worked together to issue fatwas, or religious edicts.
Tom Lasseter / MCT
Afghan Alif Khan said that he was approached by Taliban recruiters after being released from Guantanamo.
Travis Heying / Wichita Eagle / MCT
Taj Mohammed, an Afghan detainee, said that the time he spent in Guantanamo studying the Quran and discussing Islam with radicals helped him see the world more clearly.
"There were detainees who did not pray or who spoke with female soldiers," Mohammed said. "We stopped speaking with these men. Sometimes we beat them."
Tom Lasseter / MCT
Former Guantanamo detainee Mohammed Naim Farouq was described by local officials as a criminal and thug before his detention by the U.S. military in Afghanistan. But after his release from Guantanamo, he is now considered a significant Taliban leader in his region.
Travis Heying / Wichita Eagle / MCT
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