"In the eighteen years since
the infamous 'Black Hawk Down' incident in Mogadishu," The Nation's Jeremy
Scahill writes in an exclusive report in this week's issue of The Nation, "US
policy on Somalia has been marked by neglect, miscalculation and failed attempts
to use warlords to build indigenous counterterrorism capacity, many of which
have backfired dramatically." But now the US is intensifying its military and
intelligence efforts in the country. According to Scahill's on-the-ground
investigation in Mogadishu, conducted with filmmaker Richard Rowley, the CIA
has not only opened a new base in the capital city, but also uses a secret
prison in the basement of Somalia's National Security Agency. (Credit: Richard
Rowley, Big Noise Films)
According to the former fellow prisoner, Hassan told him
that his captors took him to Wilson Airport: "'They put a bag on my head,
Guantánamo style. They tied my hands behind my back and put me on a plane. In
the early hours we landed in Mogadishu. The way I realized I was in Mogadishu
was because of the smell of the sea--the runway is just next to the seashore.
The plane lands and touches the sea. They took me to this prison, where I have
been up to now. I have been here for one year, seven months. I have been
interrogated so many times. Interrogated by Somali men and white men. Every
day. New faces show up. They have nothing on me. I have never seen a lawyer,
never seen an outsider. Only other prisoners, interrogators, guards. Here there
is no court or tribunal'"....
see CIA's Secret Sites in Somalia
plus, video interview with Edward Corrigan, an
international lawyer in London
