GOULED HASSAN DOURAD

'Gouled Hassan Dourad' (born 1974) is a citizen of Somalia who is currently held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantánamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.

His Guantana Internee Security Number is 10023.

Contents

Early life

Alleged ties to terrorism

Combatant Status Review Tribunal

Allegations

Transcript

Determined to be an "enemy combatant"

See also

References

Early life

Gouled was born in Mogadishu, Somalia. When the Somali Civil War erupted in 1991, his parents sent him to Germany where he lived in a refugee camp.
He traveled to Sweden and gained asylum there in 1993.
In 1994 he attempted travel to the United States but was turned back in Iceland because of his fraudalent passport.

Alleged ties to terrorism

While in Sweden, Gouled attented a Somali mosque, whose imam arranged for Gouled and his friend, future AIAI bombmaker Qasim Mohamed, to train in Afghanistan before joining the Somali war effort.
Gouled trained at the Khalden camp in weapons and explosives from January through October 1996, and at another camp in Khost in assassination techniques for several months.
By late 1996 he returned to Somalia.
Gouled became a member of AIAI in 1997 out of a commitment to support the Somali war against Ethiopia and to win the Ogaden region of Ethiopia back to Somalia.
He fought against the Ethiopians in Ogaden off and on from 1997 to 2002 and trained AIAI fighters.
He allegedly became associated with al-Qaeda because its members were in Somalia and his AIAI cell supported the al-Qaeda.
Gouled was introduced to Abu Talha al-Sudani, who came to Mogadishu to hide following the Mombasa attacks in November 2003, in early 2003 by his AIAI cell leader.
Gouled was recruited to work for al-Sudani, in part, because he had trained in Afghanistan: spoke Arabic, English, some Swedish and Somali, and had a high-school eduction.
According to the United States Director of National Intelligence, Gouled was the head of the Mogadishu-based facilitation network of al-Itihaad al-Islamiya (AIAI) members that supported al-Qaeda members in Somalia.
Gouled was a member of a small, selective group of AIAI members who worked for the East African al-Qaida cell led by Abu Talha al-Sudani. Gouled's responsibilities included locating safehouses, assisting in the transfer of funds, and procuring weapons, explosives and other supplies. Gouled was privy to several terrorist plots under consideration by his AIAI cell, including shooting down an Ethiopian jetliner landing at an airport in Somalia in 2003 and kidnapping Western NGO-workers in Hargeysa, Somalia, in 2002 as a means to raise money for future AIAI operations.
Following Gouled's arrest, AIAI terrorists on March 19, 2004, tried unsuccessfully to kidnap a German aid worker and murdered a Kenyan contracy employee in Hargeysa.

Combatant Status Review Tribunal

Initially the Bush administration asserted that they could withhold all the protections of the Geneva Conventions to captives from the war on terror. This policy was challenged before the Judicial branch. Critics argued that the USA could not evade its obligation to conduct competent tribunals to determine whether captives are, or are not, entitled to the protections of prisoner of war status.
Subsequently the Department of Defense instituted the Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The Tribunals, however, were not authorized to determine whether the captives were ''lawful combatants'' -- rather they were merely empowered to make a recommendation as to whether the captive had previously been correctly determined to match the Bush administration's definition of an enemy combatant.

Allegations

A memorandum summarizing the evidence against bin Attash was prepared for his Combatant Status Review Tribunal, on February 8 2007.
Summary of Evidence for Goulad Hassan Dourad OARDEC
The allegations Goulad Hassan Dourad faced were:
:

'a.'	The detainee was recruited by a senior al Qaida operative who participated in the 1998 bombing of the United States embassy in Kenya and the 2002 Mombasa, Kenya, attacks. This senior al Qaida operative considered himself the senior al Qaida officer for the Horn of Africa.
'b.'	The detainee was identified as a prominent Al-Ittihad al-Islami jihadist faction member.
'c.'	The United States Department of Homeland Security Terrorist Organization Reference Guide placed Al-Ittihad al-Islami on the Terrorist Exclusion List. An organization placed on the Terrorist Exclusion List is known to commit or incite to commit acts which can cause death or serious bodily injury, prepares or plans a terrorist activity, gathers information on potential targets for terrorist activity, or provides material support to further terrorist activity.
'd.'	The Al-Ittihad al-Islami jihadist faction suffered significant blows and setbacks with the arrest of the detainee and three other individuals.
'e.'	As of 2004, the Al-Ittihad al-Islami jihadist faction in the Horn of Africa was affiliated with al Qaida and were in direct contact with Pakistan-based al Qaida operatives.
'f.'	The detainee was a well-trained fighter, who trained in guerilla warfare tactics, explosives, and marksmanship in the tribal border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan in the early 1990s. The detainee later trained at the Al-Ittihad al-Islami training camp in Lugh, Somalia.
'g.'	In 2002, the detainee participated in Al-Ittihad al-Islami operations in Mogadishu, Somalia, which involved killing Ethiopian nationals and individuals believed cooperating with the Ethiopians.
'h.'	The detainee was named an al Qaida Djibouti cell leader and senior facilitator.

Transcript

Gouled Hassan Dourad did not chose to attend his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.
Verbatim transcript for detainee 10023 OARDEC
But his Personal Representative read a statement on his behalf:
:

'3.b'	I am not a member of any Al-Ittihad al-Islami jihadist faction.However, I did fight jihad alongside Al-Ittihad against Ethiopians, which is my right to do.
'3.e'	I was arrest and detained in 2004. And even before 2004, this did not concern me because I was not a member of Al-Ittihad and I did not have any knowledge of such an affiliation.
'3.f'	My training was solely for the purpose of fighting in Somalia, but not against Americans. I never had training in Lugh, Somalia.Why would I need training there if I already had training in Afghanistan?
'3.g'	I never particpated in Al-Ittihad al-Islami operations in Mogadishu, Somalia against Ethiopians. There never were such operations.If Ethiopian military members came to Mogadishu, I would defend against them.That is my right to do as a Somali, but it is against my religious beliefs to fight against civilians.
'3.h'	This statement is not true.

Determined to be an "enemy combatant"

The Department of Defense announced, on August 9 2007 that all fourteen of the "high-value
detainees" who had been transferred to military custody in Guantanamo from custody in the CIA's
black sites, had been officially classified as "enemy combatants".
Pentagon: 14 Guantanamo Suspects Are Now Combatants
According to the Department of Defense this determination means the fourteen men can now face charges before Guantanamo military commissions.
However the military commissions faced by Omar Khadr and Salim Ahmed Hamdan dropped all charges on jurisdictional grounds on June 7 2007.
Charges Dismissed Against Canadian at Guantanamo
Judge Dismisses Charges Against Second Guantanamo Detainee
Colonel Peter Brownback and Captain Keith J. Allred ruled that the Military Commissions Act only authorized the trial of "unlawful enemy combatants", while the Combatant Status Review Tribunals had merely determined the captives to be "enemy combatants".

See also

★ Mehdi Ghezali

References