Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: Bagram

Bagram

The remainders of the US' foreign detainees in Bagram: two Tunisians, two Tajiks, one Egyptian, and one Uzbek. (The photo shows other prisoners.) Photo: Khaama Press

The ‘Other Guantanamo’ (13): What should Afghanistan do with America’s foreign detainees?

Kate Clark

The United States bequeathed Afghanistan a huge problem when it finally and completely transferred its detention facility at Bagram to the Afghan government in December 2014. For the previous 12 months, it had been urgently trying to get rid of all of the 50 or so foreigners it held there. In the end, it failed […]

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AAN’s Kate Clark on closure of Bagram Detention Facility in Afghanistan, and the fate of the detainees.

Kate Clark

In conversation with AAN’s country director Kate Clark on closure of the Bagram Detention Facility in Afghanistan, and what will be the fate of the detainees?

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Thematic Dossier VII: Detentions in Afghanistan – Bagram, Transfer and Torture

Kate Clark

One of the most controversial aspects of the 2001 intervention has ended: the United States’ detention on Afghan soil of men accused of involvement in the insurgency. At its peak, the US military detention facility on Bagram airbase held more than 3000 detainees. In the early years, there had also been a number of CIA […]

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The ‘Other Guantanamo’ (11): More transfers, a court’s scrutiny and possible redress

Kate Clark

The United States military spokesman has confirmed to AAN that another detainee has left the detention facility on Bagram Airbase, a ‘German-Moroccan’, Muhammad Abdullawi. A Russian detainee, named by the US military as Irek Hamidullan, has also been flown out – to the US to appear in a federal court on terrorism charges; the first […]

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The ‘Other Guantanamo’ (10): Bagram closing: Lawyers worried about ‘ghost detainees’ (an update)

Kate Clark

Pakistani lawyers have told AAN they fear that when the United States closes its detention facility at Bagram at the end of the year, there may still be ‘ghost detainees’, men whose names, identities – and fate – remains unknown to the outside world. Since the earliest days of the war, the United States has […]

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The US handed over the Afghan side of Bagram eighteen months ago. The newly signed BSA suggests it will be ending foreign detentions too, by the end of the year. (photo: Tolo)

The ‘Other Guantanamo’ (9): Bagram prison to close with BSA, 13 foreign detainees left

Kate Clark

The US-Afghan Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA), now officially called the Security and Defence Cooperation Agreement, a copy of which AAN has obtained, says the US shall not “maintain or operate detention facilities in Afghanistan.” It appears then, that the US foreign detention facility at Bagram, often referred to as the ‘other Guantanamo’, will close by […]

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Karzai struggles against foreign detentions – state releases Taleban?

Kate Clark

In the last weeks of his presidency, President Hamed Karzai has again been trying to eradicate the last traces of foreign involvement in detentions, sending a commission to investigate the so-called Tor Jail, an American interrogation facility on Bagram airbase, and reactivating the Afghan Review Board, which had been sifting detainees transferred by the US […]

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The ‘Other Guantanamo’ (8): A full list of foreign detainees at Bagram?

Kate Clark

 The United States military has always been highly secretive about the men it holds at the detention centre on Bagram airbase, only ever releasing one list of names – in February 2009, following a Freedom of Information request. AAN’s Kate Clark has been going through various sources of information and has put together what may […]

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Detainee releases prisoner to US-Afghan relations

AAN

France 24, 14 February 2014 In an explainer about the release of 65 detainees from Bagram prison, the website of the French international TV refers to an AAN dispatch by Kate Clark: Under the 2013 Afghan/US Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) – which has not been released, but has been seen by Kate Clark of the Kabul-based […]

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65 “Innocent” / “Dangerous” Detainees Released From Bagram: What secret documents say about Afghan and US claims

Kate Clark

Today, Thursday, 13 February, the Afghan authorities have released 65 detainees from the Bagram Detention Facility. The Afghan government says they are “suffering innocents” who were illegally detained by the United States military. The US says they are dangerous men with Afghan or foreign blood on their hands who should be going to court, not […]

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U.S. says freed Afghan prisoners are a threat to civilians, troops

AAN

Los Angeles Times, 13 February 2014 Reporting on the disputed release of 68 prisoners from Bagram, the US daily quotes from a dispatch by Kate Clark, "an expert with the Kabul-based Afghanistan Analysts Network": "The U.S. may be right — in part — in claiming the Afghan government has violated the agreement" governing the transfer of […]

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Political calculations may trump evidence in Afghan prisoners release

AAN Team

Stars and Stripes, 15 January 2014 Reporting about the Afghan-US “standoff” about the BSA and the 88 Bagram prisoners, AAN’s Kate Clark opins that it may be attributed partly to the bumpy transition from a wartime detention regime, which included indefinite imprisonment for suspected insurgents, to civilian rules, which demand that evidence be presented in a […]

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