Wikileaks could be in danger of becoming wikipointingoutthebleedingobvious, but there is some new news about the Tipton Three:
Three of the men, dubbed the “Tipton Taliban”, spent two years in the US camps in Cuba after they were captured in 2002 on suspicion of being part of al-Qaeda.
The men maintain that they had set off from Tipton in September 2001 for a wedding and holiday in Pakistan.
Shafiq Rasul said he had crossed into Afghanistan to use savings for humanitarian aid.
The assessment from US commanders was that Rasul was a “probable al-Qaeda recruit” who told officials that he and his friends had been “repeatedly told that it was every Muslim’s duty to fight Jihad” at a Muslim community centre in Tipton.
Asif Iqbal has also always denied any involvement in terrorism. He told his Guantanamo interrogators that he was in Pakistan for an arranged marriage by his parents.
US officials claimed that “based on the totality of evidence” he was “an al-Qaeda recruit who had travelled to Afghanistan to fight the Jihad against the US.”
Rhuhel Ahmed, the third of the Tipton three, said he was in Afghanistan and Pakistan to administer humanitarian aid.
He claimed he was tortured and mistreated whilst he was detained in Guantanamo Bay. He was accused of being in a video alongside bin Laden and Mohammed Atta, the leader of the September 11 attacks. He said he confessed to being in the video under duress.
The assessment of him describes him as a “probable member of al-Qaeda”.
Of course, Rhuhel Ahmed has already outed himself , even if he argues he was on the Rubber DIngy Rapids at the time.
Alec Macph adds: Shergar is dead.
