By Jane Sutton in Miami
Saturday, May 05, 2007
The US military said Guleed Hassan Ahmed, a Somali in his early 30s, was a member of al-Ittihad al-Islami, a militant Islamist group the US Government classifies as a terrorist organisation. The military has previously given the man's name as Gouled Hassan Dourad.
It also said he was an al-Qaeda cell leader in Djibouti and was part of a group that killed Ethiopians in the Somali capital of Mogadishu in 2002.
Ahmed declined to attend an administrative hearing at the Guantanamo US naval base in Cuba on April 28 to assess whether he had been properly classified as an "enemy combatant", but submitted a written statement to the hearing officers.
According to the censored transcript, Ahmed acknowledged receiving paramilitary training in Afghanistan and said he fought alongside al-Ittihad al-Islami but never joined the group and had no links to al-Qaeda.
"My training was solely for the purpose of fighting in Somalia, but not against Americans," the transcript quoted him as having said.
"I did fight jihad alongside al-Ittihad against Ethiopians, which is my right to do," he said.
"If Ethiopian... military members came to Mogadishu, I would defend against them. That is my right to do as a Somali but it is against my religious beliefs to fight against civilians."
The transcript did not contain details of the fighting.
Somalia has been in chaos since the overthrow of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. Ethiopia has sent troops into Somalia to attack radical Islamist groups it suspects could stir up trouble in the ethnically Somali regions on its side of the border.
About 380 suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters are still being held at the US military prison on the base.
Ahmed is one of 15 "high value" prisoners sent to the Guantanamo base after being held in secret CIA prisons. He said in his note to the hearing officers that he was arrested in 2004, but the circumstances of his capture have not been made public.
To classify him as an "enemy combatant" the hearing officers would have to find that he supported al-Qaeda or other forces engaged in hostilities against the US and its coalition partners.
The Air Force colonel who headed the three-person panel had to ask another officer who prepared the case which of the nations mentioned at the hearing were US coalition partners, according to the transcript.
"Somalia is not; Ethiopia is; and Kenya is, a coalition partner of the United States," the officer replied.
Source: Reuters, May 04, 2007