Afghanistan -- Hub for Secret U.S. Torture Centers

GARDEZ, Afghanistan--This dirt-road city of some 70,000, surrounded by a vast moonscape of sand and rock, can be a dicey place. Last month, suicide bombers blew up the provincial governor and then, for a second act, bombed his funeral. But Gardez, which lies south of the Afghan capital of Kabul, is a crucial stop if you're seeking clues about the inner workings of America's War on Terror.

In the town, and throughout Afghanistan, the U.S. military has created an extensive network of detention centers dedicated to holding hundreds of captured Afghans, mostly suspected Taliban backers. The United Nations is barred from these jails, as are human rights activists, journalists, and even the Afghan government. And in the absence of outside scrutiny, it seems, terrible things are happening to Afghan citizens -- men who've emerged from these jails say they've experienced the sort of horrors now synonymous with Abu Ghraib.

Dr. Rafiullah Bidar, director of the Gardez branch of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, is one of the few people who's been able to slice through the shroud of secrecy enveloping these detention centers. A small man with a bald head, prominent arched eyebrows and a beard going to gray, Bidar has debriefed scores of men captured by U.S. military forces.

"In 2005 [the U.S. military] admitted they have 20 jails all over Afghanistan and 500 detainees," said Bidar during an interview. "It was a good achievement for us to get them to admit this. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to go see these prisons. Finally, we decided to do interviews with detainees released from jails. They told us how they were tortured."

The commission has catalogued more than 100 cases of serious alleged abuses -- abuses Bidar described in methodical fashion. The victims include one man allegedly "blindfolded and forced to sit on a chair that penetrated his anus" by U.S. personnel.

Most of the men were villagers held as alleged Taliban or al-Qaeda sympathizers. Bidar said the majority aren't actually allied with either group.

The story of Allah Noor, a middle aged merchant with a small produce stand in the heart of town, is typical. Noor was grabbed by U.S. soldiers on a winter afternoon in late 2003. "When they entered my shop they asked an Afghan translator to tie my hands," Noor recalled in an interview. "They wanted to know 'where the guns were.'" The troops thought he was providing weapons to the local Taliban guerrillas although he had no arms.

The soldiers blindfolded and hooded Noor before driving him to a nearby base. When the blinders were removed he found himself in a locked room surrounded by two Afghan translators, three Americans in civilian garb and three Americans in military uniform. They stripped him naked and took photos from all sides. Some of the U.S. personnel began asking him questions through the translators while others "started to beat me very badly. Then they forced me to sit in a position that was impossible."

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