Five Americans Suspected Of Treason Held Captive In Iraq

Washington Post – The U.S. military is holding five U.S. citizens suspected of insurgent activities in Iraq, a Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday.

They were captured separately and don’t appear to have ties to one another, spokesman Bryan Whitman said. He declined to identify them, citing a Pentagon policy that prohibits identification of detainees.

Three of those being detained are Iraqi-Americans; another is an Iranian-American; the fifth is a Jordanian-American, Whitman said. The three Iraqi-Americans were captured in April, May and June, officials said. The Iranian-American was captured May 17, one official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the cases.

One of the Iraqi-Americans allegedly had knowledge of planning for an attack, and another was possibly involved in a kidnapping, Whitman said. The third was “engaged in suspicious activity,” he said, declining to be more specific.

Whitman said the Iranian-American was captured with several dozen washing machine timers in his car– items that can be used as components in bombs.

In Los Angeles, relatives identified him as Cyrus Kar, 44, a U.S. Navy veteran who lives in that city. He was in Iraq to film scenes for a documentary on King Cyrus the Great, founder of Persia, when he was arrested at a checkpoint in Baghdad in mid-May, his family said. They also said he has been cleared of wrongdoing and there is no legal authority for his detention.

They said he called them on May 24 and said he had been detained because of a misunderstanding involving a taxi driver who had been driving Kar and his cameraman around Baghdad. Kar was born in Iran but came to the United States when he was a child, according to reports in the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times.

The Jordanian-American was captured in a raid late last year and is suspected of high-level ties to Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist and leading al-Qaida ally in Iraq. Officials announced his capture in March.

All five are in custody at one of the three U.S.-run prisons in Iraq– Abu Ghraib, Camp Bucca or Camp Cropper, Whitman said, declining to provide their precise location. The International Committee of the Red Cross has had access to all five prisoners, Whitman said.

A panel of three U.S. officers rules on whether each prisoner is properly held; that has already taken place for the Jordanian-American. Whitman did not say whether the three Iraqi-Americans or the Iranian-American have been through this process.

There’s not a lot of additional information available on this right now. If I had to guess I’d say that all of these individuals are probably naturalized American citizens who remained loyal to their extreme Islamic roots instead of their adoptive nation. The 9/11 attacks and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq probably prompted them to get involved which led to their involvement with terrorist activities.

Or, alternativey, perhaps they are simply foreign infiltrators who obtained American citizenship as a means to their jihadist end.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that they all had ties to one extremist mosque or other Islamic organization back here state side and had been activity in terror activities within our borders as well.

But again, that’s just speculation. We’ll have to what comes of this. The Jawa Report will be a good place to watch for updates as they become available.

Rob Port is the owner and operator of Say Anything.

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