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Three Americans charged with running a private counter-terrorism operation in Afghanistan (news - web sites) are set to reappear in court to face charges they jailed and tortured eight Afghan citizens. Jonathan Idema claims that he and two other Americans and a group of Afghan employees were working with the full knowledge of US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to hunt down terrorists in Afghanistan. Both the US and Afghan governments have disavowed any ties with Idema and his two co-defendants Brent Bennett and Edward Caraballo. The case has shone a spotlight on the shadowy world of security and counter-terrorism in...

KABUL, Afghanistan, July 10 - Journalists remember him as Jack, an eccentric, heavily armed and at times, it seemed, dangerously unbalanced, middle-aged former American Special Forces soldier, who appeared in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001. Surrounded by armed Afghan guards and rumors that he worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, he quickly rose to prominence. In the next two years, he was interviewed by Fox and CBS News, helped write a book called "The Hunt for bin Laden" and said he had discovered evidence in Afghanistan that linked Iraq to Al Qaeda. This week, Jack, a convicted felon...

Tin SoldierAn American Vigilante In Afghanistan, Using the Press for Profit and Glory By Mariah Blake In April 2004, a former U.S. Special Forces soldier named Jonathan Keith Idema started shopping a sizzling story to the media. He claimed terrorists in Afghanistan planned to use bomb-laden taxicabs to kill key U.S. and Afghan officials, and that he himself intended to thwart the attack. Shortly thereafter, he headed to Afghanistan, where he spent the next two months conducting a series of raids with his team, which he called Task Force Saber 7. By late June, he claimed to have captured the...

Afghan forces arrested three Americans, including a purported former Green Beret, after raiding a jail they were allegedly running in the Afghan capital and finding prisoners hanging from their feet, officials said Thursday. The U.S. military, facing a widening inquiry into prisoner abuse, quickly distanced itself from the three, who had been posing as American agents before being detained Monday. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Thursday "the U.S. government does not employ or sponsor these men." Afghan officials also dismissed claims by the apparent ringleader, Jonathan K. Idema, that he was a "special adviser" to their security forces, saying...

 Spectator.org Print Article         Close Window         Copyright © 2002 Spectator.org. All Rights Reserved. Inside Stories of the Transformed Armed Forces By Published 9/2/2003 12:02:00 AM Buy the Book Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success.-- George W. Bush, Address to Congress, September 20, 2001 The back cover of The Hunt for Bin Laden, by Robin Moore (Random House, $24.95), shows Moore, an...