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United States closes last detainee site in Afghanistan as troop pullout advances U.S. closes last detainee site in Afghanistan as troop pullout advances
(about 2 hours later)
KABUL — The United States closed its last detention facility in Afghanistan on Thursday in the latest step to scale down its military mission and sever another link to post-9/11 sites detailed in a report on alleged CIA abuses. KABUL — The United States closed its last detention facility in Afghanistan and transferred all remaining prisoners to Afghan custody, U.S. officials said Thursday, ending a controversial chapter in America’s war against terrorism.
The closure of the U.S. prisoner facility at the Bagram air base north of Kabul came following the transfer of detainees to other countries or into Afghan custody, such as Tunisian detainee Redha al-Najar, the Reuters news agency reported. But attacks in Afghanistan’s capital and other parts of the country on Thursday underscored the extent to which much the conflict remains unfinished, even as most international troops pull out at the end of the month.
Najar was captured as a suspected bodyguard of Osama bin Laden in May 2002. He and another Tunisian were held at one of the secret CIA facilities described in an exhaustive Senate report released Monday. A suicide bomber killed six Afghan soldiers and wounded 14 traveling in a military minibus in the first assault in Kabul in more than a week, officials said. Hours later, a teenage suicide bomber struck during an event at a French-run school, killing at least one person and injuring more than 20.
The report reopened scrutiny of interrogation methods such as waterboarding and stress positions used against detainees following the Sept. 11 attacks. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius called the attack “barbaric.” He said in a statement: “I firmly condemn this terrorist act which caused the death of several people and left many injured. There were no French victims.”
The U.S. embassy in Kabul said the Bagram closure is linked to plans to withdraw the bulk of U.S. forces from Afghanistan by January. At one point, hundreds of detainees were held at Bagram. The attack on Istiqlal School, home to the French Cultural Center, unfolded during a performance of a play called “Heart Beat,” a production about democracy and freedom. Officials said that about 500 people were in the auditorium and that the bomber apparently was in the audience.
Even as international forces pull back from Afghanistan, violence remains a constant threat. “The suicide bomber was a boy between 15 to 16 years old who had probably hidden the explosives in his underwear,” said Abdul Rahman Rahimi, Kabul’s police chief.
On Thursday, a suicide bomber killed at least five Afghan soldiers in s military minibus in the first assault in the capital Kabul in more than a week, officials said. A reporter for the television network Tolo News witnessed the attack and described it in a broadcast: “While I was filming the show, I suddenly heard a huge sound. I saw dead bodies and wounded people around me, and they were crying for help. But there wasn’t anyone to help them. Everyone was running away from the hall.”
In a separate attack, a teenage suicide bomber targeted a packed auditorium during a music performance at a French-run high school in Kabul, killing a German citizen, the Associated Press reported, citing the acting interior minister, Mohammad Ayoub Salangi. There were also clashes between Afghan security forces and Taliban insurgents in the central market of Shindand district in western Herat province. Insurgents also fired a rocket at Bagram base, where U.S. troops are based. But the missile fell into a field and caused no casualties, said Gen. Zaman Mamozai, the police chief in Parwan province, north of Kabul.
Germany plans to deploy up to 850 soldiers to a NATO-directed training and advisory mission in Afghanistan beginning next month. The force will take over after the alliance’s combat troops leave the country. Since last month, the Afghan capital has been on edge after a series of attacks that killed several foreigners, including a South African aid worker and his two children as well as two U.S. soldiers. Taliban insurgents unsuccessfully tried to assassinate Kabul’s then-police chief and an outspoken women’s activist.
Thursday’s attacks, which occurred after a brief lull in the violence, came a day after Afghan President Ashraf Ghani publicly expressed shock at a U.S. Senate report’s scathing revelations about the CIA’s interrogation tactics, allegedly also employed against many Afghans. At a news conference, Ghani stressed that a recent bilateral security pact between Kabul and Washington did not allow Americans to run prisons or arrest people in Afghanistan.
On Thursday, American officials said the last remaining U.S. prisoner facility at Bagram base would be shut down, severing another link to post-9/11 sites detailed in the Senate report. At one point, hundreds of detainees from different countries were held there. The officials said the decision to close the facility did not stem from the CIA report but was part of the effort to scale down the U.S. military mission by the end of the year.
“The closure of our detention facilities was an explicit provision of the Bilateral Security Agreement, which states the United States shall not maintain or operate detention facilities in Afghanistan,” said Col. Brian Tribus, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, the NATO-led security mission in Afghanistan. “The recent transfers of detainees was due to this legal requirement and was not linked to the release of the Senate committee report on detention and interrogation.”
The closure of the prison came after the transfer of detainees to other countries or into Afghan custody, such as Tunisian Redha al-Najar. He was captured in May 2002 on suspicion of being a bodyguard of Osama bin Laden. Najar and another Tunisian were held at one of the secret CIA facilities described in the Senate report, which was released Tuesday.
It’s unclear whether the last detainees transferred from the Bagram facility will face trial before an Afghan court. In his remarks to journalists on Wednesday, Ghani noted that some of the Afghans who were abused while in detention and had their rights violated “were proven to be entirely innocent.”
Mohammad Sharif contributed to this report.