Al-Qaeda safe house

The ruins of a reported Taliban safe house in Khost destroyed by American and Afghan troops in December 2009. A Soldier from Charlie Company 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment sets fire to a Taliban safehouse discovered during Operation Catamount Fury.

Al-Qaeda is understood[by whom?] to have operated a number of safe houses, some of which were used as training centres.

American intelligence analysts justified the extrajudicial detention of some Guantanamo suspects because they stayed in what they characterized as an Al Qaeda safe house, one of the most prominent being Issa safehouse in Faisalabad, Pakistan.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] American intelligence analysts also justify the detention of suspects who stayed in an Al Qaeda guest house, a Taliban safe house or a Taliban guest house.

In the first Seton Hall report, Mark Denbeaux writes that guest houses and/or safe houses are mentioned in the evidence against 27% of detainees.[9] Denbeaux states that "In the region, the term guest house refers simply to a form of travel accommodation" and "Stopping at such facilities is common for all people traveling in the area."[9] A response to that report written by West Point's Combating Terrorism Center argued that "the Seton Hall report inaccurately defines the term ‘safe-house’ – a well-known tool leveraged by criminals and terrorists to facilitate discreet movement of associates – as an innocuous residence used by American tourists and travel agencies."[10] Denbeaux responded that the Seton Hall study had "used the Department of Defense’s terms objectively and accepted their plain meanings" and that "West Point does not provide any basis for equating guest houses and safe houses other than the obvious problem with detaining an individual in part based on his stay in a 'guest' house."[11]

The CTC report states[12] that:

> Safe-houses, sometimes referred to as ‘guest-houses,’ facilitate an individual’s ability to discreetly (sic) transit from one location to another by providing them with a place to spend the night, acquire resources, obtain false documentation or secure modes of transportation. Organized crime syndicates, terrorist networks and traffickers all rely on safe-houses to move people from place-to-place. They may be houses, apartments, mosques, stores, refugee camps, barracks, or any other type of infrastructure that houses individuals involved in nefarious activities.

> Al-Qa`ida, the Taliban and their associates have leveraged the safe-house network to great ends, particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Many of these houses and apartments, which had been run for the specific purpose of ensuring safe passage for associates of those movements,gathering intelligence on targets and for going underground[13] have been identified by the United States in its ongoing counterterrorism operations.

Benjamin Wittes and his colleagues at the Brookings Institution noted in January 2010 that different judges reviewing the habeas petitions for different Guantanamo captives had reached conflicting conclusions on the common issue of whether an alleged stay in a suspect guest house indicated terrorist affiliation strongly enough to justify continued detention.[14] Wittes and his colleagues, in their analysis of the documents from the first 558 Combatant Status Review Tribunals, reported that continued detention was found justified for 130 Guantanamo captives at least in part because they "stayed in Al Qaeda, Taliban, or other guest- or safehouses."[15]

Joseph Felter and his colleagues, in "An Assessment of 516 Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) Unclassified Summaries", found that 24 percent of the Summary of Evidence memos, or 122 of the 516 they analyzed, justified the continued detention of a captive due to claims of stays in a suspicious guest house or safe house.[12]

## References

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Taliban or al Qaeda guesthouses.

1. ^ "Summary of Evidence Memoranda" (PDF). Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants. January 2005. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2006-07-31. Retrieved 2014-11-24.
2. ^ "Summary of Evidence Memoranda" (PDF). Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants. February 2005. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2006-07-31. Retrieved 2014-11-24.
3. ^ "Summary of Evidence Memoranda" (PDF). Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants. March 2005. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2006-07-31. Retrieved 2014-11-24.
4. ^ "Summary of Evidence Memoranda" (PDF). Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants. April 2005. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2006-07-31. Retrieved 2014-11-24.
5. ^ "Summary of Evidence Memoranda" (PDF). Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants. May 2005. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2006-07-31. Retrieved 2014-11-24.
6. ^ "Summary of Evidence Memoranda" (PDF). Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants. 2006-03-03. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2009-01-25. Retrieved 2014-11-24.
7. ^ "Summary of Evidence Memoranda" (PDF). Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants. 2006-03-03. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2009-01-25. Retrieved 2014-11-24.
8. ^ "Summary of Evidence Memoranda" (PDF). Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants. 2006-03-03. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2007-12-04. Retrieved 2014-11-24.
9. ^ a b Mark Denbeaux; Joshua Denbeaux (8 February 2006). "Report on Guantanom detainees: A Profile of 517 Detainees through Analysis of Department of Defense Data" (PDF). Seton Hall University School of Law. p. 20\. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 February 2010. Retrieved 20 February 2010.
10. ^ Joseph Felter; Jarret Brachman (25 July 2007). "A response to the Seton Hall Study: An Assessment of 516 Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) Unclassified Summaries" (PDF). Combating Terrorism Center. Retrieved 2010-03-27.[permanent dead link]
11. ^ Cageprisoners.com[permanent dead link]
12. ^ a b Joseph Felter; Jarret Brachman (2007-07-25). "CTC Report: An Assessment of 516 Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) Unclassified Summaries" (PDF). Combating Terrorism Center. p. 6\. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-01-09. "GUEST HOUSE: Evidence of staying at a guest house known or suspected to be used as a way station for individuals enroute to supporting jihad and other terrorist activities. (24% of the CSRT unclassified summaries)"
13. ^ "Situation, Facts and Events". ecrats.org. Retrieved 2023-12-25.
14. ^ Benjamin Wittes; Robert Chesney; Rabea Benhalim (2010-01-22). "The Emerging Law of Detention The Guantánamo Habeas Cases as Lawmaking*" (PDF). Brookings Institution. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-05-20. Retrieved 2010-03-16. "A second unresolved matter is whether the judges ultimately will splinter more sharply in light of their varying understandings of what it means to be "part of" an AUMF-covered group, given that none of these entities much resembles a hierarchical membership organization. It is one thing to come to a consensus that membership counts to justify detention, but quite another to reach agreement as to the practical indicia of that status. Does attendance at a training camp or lodging at a sponsored guest house count? The majority in Al Bihani goes out of its way, in dicta, to suggest that either, standing alone, might suffice.57 But as noted above in connection with Judge Urbina's Hatim decision, and as noted below in connection with a variety of other cases, at least some of the district judges insist upon much more than that.58 Moreover, should Al Bihani be reversed on the question of whether the laws of war condition the appropriate interpretation of the AUMF, we may also see significant fragmentation regarding what the laws of war have to say on both this subject and on the question of independent support."
15. ^ Benjamin Wittes; Zaahira Wyne (2008-12-16). "The Current Detainee Population of Guantánamo: An Empirical Study -- Executive Summary" (PDF). The Brookings Institution. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-01-26. "If the government's allegations against detainees are uniformly credited, the following picture of the current population emerges ... 130 stayed in Al Qaeda, Taliban, or other guest- or safehouses."

* v
* t
* e

Al-Qaida and Taliban guest or safe houses in Afghanistan and Pakistan

Afghanistan|

* al Qaida guest house, Kabul
* Najim Jihad

Pakistan|

* Osama bin Laden's compound, Abbottabad
* Al-Qaeda guest houses, Faisalabad
* Al-Qaeda safe houses, Karachi
* Bayt al-Ansar, Peshawar

* v
* t
* e

Al-Qaeda

Leadership|

* Saif al-Adel
* Abd al-Rahman al-Maghribi
* Ahmad Umar
* Iyad Ag Ghaly
* Ezedin Abdel Aziz Khalil
* Abu Ubaidah Youssef al-Annabi
* Ali Sayyid Muhamed Mustafa al-Bakri
* Ibrahim al-Banna
* Ibrahim al Qosi
* Abu Walid al-Masri
* Mohammed Showqi Al-Islambouli
* Abdukadir Mohamed Abdukadir
* Fuad Qalaf
* Jehad Mostafa
* Abu Humam al-Shami
* Sami al-Oraydi

Former
leadership|

| Killed|

* Osama bin Laden (killing)
* Ayman al-Zawahiri (killing)
* Mohammed Atef
* Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi
* Mustafa Mohamed Fadhil
* Haitham al-Yemeni
* Abu Hamza Rabia
* Muhsin Musa Matwalli Atwah
* Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
* Omar al-Faruq
* Haitham al-Badri
* Abu Yaqub al-Masri
* Abu Talha al-Sudani
* Abu Laith al-Libi
* Abu Sulayman Al-Jazairi
* Midhat Mursi
* Mohamed Moumou
* Khalid Habib
* Abu Ghadiya
* Abu Zubair al-Masri
* Rashid Rauf
* Mohammad Hasan Khalil al-Hakim
* Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam
* Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan
* Saad bin Laden
* Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan
* Abdullah Said al Libi
* Saleh al-Somali
* Saeed al-Masri
* Hamza al-Jawfi
* Ahmed Mohammed Hamed Ali
* Mohamed Abul-Khair
* Sheikh Fateh
* Huthaifa al-Batawi
* Ilyas Kashmiri
* Fazul Abdullah Mohammed
* Atiyah Abd al-Rahman
* Anwar al-Awlaki
* Samir Khan
* Tariq al-Dahab
* Muhammad Sa'id Ali Hasan
* Fahd al-Quso
* Abu Yahya al-Libi
* Hassan Ghul
* Abu-Zaid al Kuwaiti
* Said Ali al-Shihri
* Farman Ali Shinwari
* Abdelhamid Abou Zeid
* Ibrahim Haji Jama Mee'aad
* Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki
* Said Bahaji
* Abu Khalid al-Suri
* Omar Ould Hamaha
* Ahmed Abdi Godane
* Abu Yusuf Al-Turki
* Adnan Gulshair el Shukrijumah
* Adam Yahiye Gadahn
* Harith bin Ghazi al-Nadhari
* Othman Ahmad Othman al-Ghamdi
* Ibrahim Sulayman Muhammad al-Rubaysh
* Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi
* Nasir al-Wuhayshi
* Muhsin al-Fadhli
* Abu Khalil al-Madani
* Matiur Rehman
* Abu Firas al-Suri
* Ahmed Refai Taha
* Mokhtar Belmokhtar
* Abu Khayr al-Masri
* Ibrahim al-Asiri
* Hamza bin Laden
* Sari Shihab
* Asim Umar
* Qasim al-Raymi
* Abdelmalek Droukdel
* Khalid al-Aruri
* Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah
* Abu Muhsin al-Masri

|

Captured|

* Mamdouh Mahmud Salim
* Wadih el-Hage
* Khalid al-Fawwaz
* Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri
* Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
* Walid bin Attash
* Riduan Isamuddin
* Ali al-Bahlul
* Ahmed Ghailani
* Abu Faraj al-Libbi
* Mustafa Setmariam Nasar
* Abdul Hadi al Iraqi
* Muhammad Jafar Jamal al-Kahtani
* Mohamed Atiq Awayd Al Harbi
* Younis al-Mauritani
* Sulaiman Abu Ghaith
* Abu Anas al-Libi
* Muhanad Mahmoud Al Farekh
* Mukhtar Robow
* Amin al-Haq

Other|

* Abu Ubaidah al-Banshiri (died)
* Abu Ubaidah al-Masri (died)
* Mahfouz Ould al-Walid (left)
* Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (expelled)
* Abu Mohammad al-Julani (left)
* Abu Maria al-Qahtani (left)
* Ahmad Salama Mabruk (left)
* Abu Omar al-Turkistani (left)
* Abu Sulayman al-Muhajir (left)
* Khalid Batarfi (died)

Timeline
of attacks|

* 1998 United States embassy bombings
* 2000 USS Cole bombing
* 2001 September 11 attacks
* 2002 Bali bombings
* 2004 Madrid train bombings
* 2005 London bombings
* 2007 Algiers bombings
* 2008 Islamabad Danish embassy bombing
* 2008 Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing
* 2013 In Amenas hostage crisis
* 2013 Westgate shopping mall attack
* 2015 Charlie Hebdo shooting
* 2015 Garissa University College attack
* 2015 Bamako hotel attack
* 2016 Ouagadougou attacks
* 2016 Grand-Bassam shootings
* 2016 Bamako attack
* 2019 Naval Air Station Pensacola shooting

Wars|

* Soviet–Afghan War
* Afghan Civil War (1989–1992)
* Afghan Civil War (1992–1996)
* First Chechen War
* Afghan Civil War (1996–2001)
* Second Chechen War
* War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)
* Iraq War
* Somali Civil War
* War in North-West Pakistan (drone strikes)
* Insurgency in the Maghreb (2002–present)
* Syrian civil war
* Yemeni civil war (2014–present)
* Al-Qaeda insurgency in Yemen
* Houthi insurgency

Affiliates|

* Al-Shabaab (Somalia)
* Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (Yemen)
* Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (North Africa)
* Egyptian Islamic Jihad (Egypt)
* Al-Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent (Indian subcontinent)
* Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (Mali)
* Hurras al-Din (Syria)

Charity organizations|

* Benevolence International Foundation
* Al-Haramain Foundation

Media|

* Al Qaeda Handbook
* Al Neda
* As-Sahab
* Fatawā of Osama bin Laden
* Inspire
* Al-Khansaa
* Kuala Lumpur al-Qaeda Summit
* Management of Savagery
* Voice of Jihad
* Qaedat al-Jihad
* Global Islamic Media Front

Video and audio|

* Videos and audio recordings of Osama bin Laden
* Videos and audio recordings of Ayman al-Zawahiri
* USS Cole bombing

Related|

* Safe houses
* Saddam–al-Qaeda conspiracy theory
* Timeline

Category:Al-Qaeda
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