Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
: نشوان عبدالرزاق عبدالباقي التامر), better known as Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi () is an Iraqi member of
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda (; , ) is an Islamic extremist organization composed of Salafist jihadists. Its members are mostly composed of Arabs, but also include other peoples. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military targets in various countr ...
who is now in United States custody at
Guantanamo Bay detention camp
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp ( es, Centro de detención de la bahía de Guantánamo) is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also referred to as Guantánamo, GTMO, and Gitmo (), on the coast of Gua ...
in
Cuba
Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribb ...
.
Early life
Al-Iraqi was born in
Mosul
Mosul ( ar, الموصل, al-Mawṣil, ku, مووسڵ, translit=Mûsil, Turkish: ''Musul'', syr, ܡܘܨܠ, Māwṣil) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. The city is considered the second larg ...
to a
Sunni
Sunni Islam () is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word '' Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a dis ...
Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
family in 1961. He speaks
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
as his first language, and later learned
Urdu
Urdu (;"Urdu" '' Pashto
Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani ().
Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official langua ...
Iraqi Army
The Iraqi Ground Forces (Arabic: القوات البرية العراقية), or the Iraqi Army (Arabic: الجيش العراقي), is the ground force component of the Iraqi Armed Forces. It was known as the Royal Iraqi Army up until the coup ...
, and fought for Iraq, during the Iran-Iraq War. Then he travelled to
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...
According to information about him provided by the
Pentagon
In geometry, a pentagon (from the Greek πέντε ''pente'' meaning ''five'' and γωνία ''gonia'' meaning ''angle'') is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple pentagon is 540°.
A pentagon may be sim ...
, Hadi was a key paramilitary commander in Afghanistan during the late 1990s before taking charge of cross-border attacks against the US and coalition troops from 2002 to 2004. He was accused of commanding attacks on Afghanistan coalition forces and involvement in plots to assassinate Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Following the American invasion in 2001, he clashed with
Ahmed Khadr
Ahmed Said Khadr ( ar, أحمد سعيد خضر; March 1, 1948 – October 2, 2003) was a Canadian citizen who began working in Afghanistan in the 1980s. There he has been described as having had ties to a number of militant and Mujahideen ...
arguing that
front line
A front line (alternatively front-line or frontline) in military terminology is the position(s) closest to the area of conflict of an armed force's personnel and equipment, usually referring to land forces. When a front (an intentional or unin ...
battle would prove more useful than guerilla tactics around
Shagai, Pakistan
Shahgai is a region in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
A fortress built by British forces in 1927 to oversee the Khyber Pass and house the Khyber Rifles still stands, and is today used by the Pakistan Army.
In 2002/2003, Canadian ...
.
Al-Iraqi was alleged to have managed the
Ashara guest house The Ashara guest house was an al Qaeda guest house located in ''" Kart-E-Parwan district of Kabul, Afghanistan"''.
The house was reported to have been managed by Abdul Hadi al-Iraqi—widely described as al Qaeda's third in command.
Abdul Zahir ...
, in
Kabul
Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into #Districts, 22 municipal dist ...
's diplomatic district, from where he was alleged to command Al-Qaeda's army, and to have served as al-Qaeda's accountant.
He had been wanted in
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
since at least February 2005. The most recent
U.S. State Department
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other n ...
wanted poster said
The ''Newsweek'' article claimed that al-Iraqi brokered a 2005 reconciliation between
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until his death in 2011. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, his group is designated ...
and
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi ( ar, أَبُو مُصْعَبٍ ٱلزَّرْقَاوِيُّ, ', ''Father of Musab, from Zarqa''; ; October 30, 1966 – June 7, 2006), born Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh (, '), was a Jordanian jihadist who ran a t ...
. ''Newsweek'' asserted that bin Laden had failed to anticipate the strength of the Iraqi's anti-occupation resistance and that he dispatched al-Iraqi to take charge of establishing an Al-Qaeda presence in the resistance. ''Newsweek'' asserted that Zarqawi had left a bad impression on his fellow veterans of the struggle to evict the Soviet invaders and that bin Laden didn't trust him. However, al-Iraqi recommended that Al-Qaeda would be better served by naming Zarqawi the head of
Al-Qaeda in Iraq
Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI; ar, القاعدة في العراق, al-Qā'idah fī al-ʿIrāq) or Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia ( ar, القاعدة في بلاد الرافدين, al-Qā'idah fī Bilād ar-Rāfidayn), officially known as ''Tanzim Qaidat a ...
than by trying to compete with him for volunteers and establish a parallel effort—explaining the reconciliation.
It was reported in January 2002 that someone with the same pseudonyms, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi and Abu Abdullah, had been captured in Afghanistan. That person was also described as a training camp commander. However, despite these coincidences, the two suspects are now known to be distinct people.
Despite the report that Abd al-Hadi spoke several regional languages, several of the charges against Abdul Zahir stem from him serving as a translator for Abdul-Hadi.
A captured letter dated June 13, 2002, and thought to be from
Saif al-Adel
Saif al-Adel ( ar, سيف العدل; born April 11, 1960/63) is a former Egyptian colonel, explosives expert, and a high-ranking member of al-Qaeda who is still at large. Adel is under indictment by the United StatesUS DoD statement says that Abdul-Hadi "during 2002–04, was in charge of cross-border attacks in Afghanistan" and that before his capture, he "was trying to return to his native country, Iraq, to manage al-Qai`da's affairs and possibly focus on operations outside Iraq against Western targets".
Capture
On April 27, 2007, it was reported that he was detained at Guantanamo Bay. He was previously held by the CIA. According to
BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadc ...
, US sources told them that al-Iraqi was arrested "late last year", meaning in 2006.
On September 6, 2006,
US President
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...
George W. Bush officially confirmed that the CIA maintained a secret network of overseas interrogation camps when he announced that fourteen "high value detainees", including al-Iraqi, had been transferred to Guantanamo, from those secret camps.
Bush claimed that the transfer of these fourteen men had emptied the CIA's secret interrogation camps. Critics pointed out that Bush had not announced the closure of the camps and that the date of al-Iraqi's capture had not been made known. Al-Iraqi had a writ of
habeas corpus
''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, ...
filed on his behalf.
The
Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to:
Current departments of defence
* Department of Defence (Australia)
* Department of National Defence (Canada)
* Department of Defence (Ireland)
* Department of National Defense (Philipp ...
announced on August 9, 2007, that all fourteen of the "high-value detainees" who had been transferred to Guantanamo from the CIA's
black site
In military terminology, a black site is a location at which an unacknowledged black operation or black project is conducted. According to the Associated Press, "Black sites are clandestine jails where prisoners generally are not charged with ...
s had been officially classified as "enemy combatants".mirror /ref> Although judges Peter Brownback and Keith J. Allred had ruled two months earlier that only "''illegal'' enemy combatants" could face military commissions, the Department of Defense waived the qualifier and said that all fourteen men could now face charges before
Guantanamo military commission
ThGuantanamo military commissionswere established by President George W. Bush – through a Military Order – on November 13, 2001, to try certain non-citizen terrorism suspects at the Guantanamo Bay prison. To date, there have been a total of e ...
s.
Medical condition
al-Iraqi suffers from a spinal condition. Camp authorities flew in a neuro-surgical team for an emergency operation, hours before Cuba was struck by
Hurricane Irma
Hurricane Irma was an extremely powerful Cape Verde hurricane that caused widespread destruction across its path in September 2017. Irma was the first Category 5 hurricane to strike the Leeward Islands on record, followed by Maria two ...
. According to
Carol Rosenberg
Carol Rosenberg is a senior journalist at ''The New York Times.'' Long a military-affairs reporter at the ''Miami Herald'', from January 2002 into 2019 she reported on the operation of the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camps, at its nava ...
, writing in the ''
Miami Herald
The ''Miami Herald'' is an American daily newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and headquartered in Doral, Florida, a city in western Miami-Dade County and the Miami metropolitan area, several miles west of Downtown Miami.CT scan performed in January 2017 pointed out the need for surgery. Camp authorities only scheduled his surgery after he couldn't feel his legs anymore and couldn't hold his urination or defecation.
On September 15, 2017, his lawyers announced that he needed another surgery on his spine and in his neck.
Andy Worthington
Andy Worthington is a British historian, investigative journalist, and film director.
He has published three books, two on Stonehenge and one on the war on terror, been published in numerous publications and directed documentary films. Artic ...