Were there more American Taliban?

United Press International via COMTEX ^ | 23 July 2002 | MICHAEL KIRKLAND, UPI Legal Affairs Correspondent

[habaes corpussel]

WASHINGTON, Jul 25, 2002 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Are there more American Taliban getting ready to pop out of the woodwork?

Last month, Pakistani security police announced that they had captured two to six American citizens among Taliban refugees in that country, depending on which media source was reporting the story.

But after that first announcement, the story pretty much died without a resolution -- until now.

U.S. officials said Thursday that they have no knowledge of such American prisoners, other than the initial reports out of Pakistan.

The United States has characterized three men -- John Walker Lindh, Yaser Esam Hamdi and Jose Padilla -- as American citizens fighting for the Taliban or working for al Qaida, Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization.

The 20-year-old Walker Lindh abandoned a life of privilege in the United States for what he believed was a spiritual journey to Islam, then found himself facing U.S. troops in Afghanistan on behalf of the Taliban regime.

Captured and then wounded during a prison compound riot in Afghanistan, he was returned to the United States to face charges. Earlier this month, he pleaded guilty to two charges in order to avoid the death penalty.

In contrast, Hamdi is apparently an American by accident.

He was purportedly born in Louisiana to Saudi Arabian parents who returned to the Middle East shortly afterward.

Also captured during the prison compound uprising in Afghanistan last year, Hamdi, like Walker Lindh, was returned to the United States instead of being detained abroad because of his U.S. citizenship.

Unlike Walker Lindh, however, Hamdi has not been charged. Instead he is being held indefinitely as an enemy combatant at a Naval facility in Norfolk, Va., while government lawyers and public defenders argue in court over his fate.

The third man, Jose Padilla, is of a much different type, according to U.S. officials.

The United States has said that the 31-year-old Padilla, who now calls himself Abdullah al Muhajir, tried to re-enter the country through Chicago's O'Hare International Airport in May, when he was arrested.

Padilla's purpose, U.S. officials say, was to prepare for the explosion of a radioactive "dirty bomb" in an American city. A dirty bomb is a conventional explosive device wrapped in radioactive material. When the conventional device explodes, it scatters the radioactive material over a broad area.

U.S. investigators charged that Padilla had met with senior al Qaida leaders in Pakistan to further the plot, which never got beyond the planning stage. He had also trained in the terror groups' camps in Afghanistan.

The interest in the three men led to speculation about the Pakistani arrests of Americans last month. Had a number of other U.S. citizens been enticed into betraying their country?

In June, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry officially announced that two U.S. passport-holders had been arrested, along with a group of other people, as they tried to enter mountainous Pakistani tribal areas from Afghanistan.

Some U.S. investigators believe that if bin Laden is still alive, and not crushed under tons of rubble from U.S. air raids on cave redoubts in Afghanistan, he has fled to the border areas that are officially under Pakistan's control but are actually ruled by a number of mountain tribes.

Neither the Justice Department nor the FBI was officially notified of the June arrests.

A State Department spokeswoman said the arrests were the province of the Justice Department, not her agency.

One senior U.S. law enforcement official said he expressed doubts about the Pakistani reports when they first appeared, and since there was no follow-up contact from the Pakistanis, "We never did find out what happened."

Another senior law enforcement official said the incident "was not on the radar screen" among U.S. investigators.

In Washington, a spokesman for the Embassy of Pakistan said the fate of the two U.S. passport-holders arrested along the border area was simple and quick -- though his explanation does not completely solve the minor mystery.

"They were deported," said press attache Asad Hayauedin. "They were sent back to the U.S."

The Pakistani diplomat said the pair "were just Afghan heritage people with U.S. citizenship. They are back in the United States, as far as I know. They were deported, which means they were put on a plane and sent out of Pakistan."

Hayauedin said U.S. officials were not notified "because it was a police matter, not a military one."

An FBI spokesman said later that if the two men are indeed back in the United States, U.S. officials "probably would want to talk to them."

[habaes corpussel]

This is going to become very interesting in the Constitutional sense.....

[goodieD]

Yes, and they're almost all over at DU.