Abu Zubaydah

Abu Zubaydah (ابو زبيدة, Abū Zubaydah; born March 12, 1971, as Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn) is a Palestinian citizen and alleged terrorist born in Saudi Arabia currently held by the U.S. in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba.

He is held under the authority of Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF).

Zubaydah is reported to have studied computer science in Mysore, India, prior to his travel to Afghanistan/Pakistan at the age of 20 in 1991.

In 1991 he joined the mujahideen and fought against Afghan Communist Government forces during the Afghan Civil War, perhaps serving under Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi.

In 1992, Zubaydah was injured in an Afghan mortar attack, which left shrapnel in his head and caused severe memory loss, as well as the loss of the ability to speak for over one year.

Zubaydah eventually became involved in the training camp known as the Khalden training camp, where he oversaw the flow of recruits and obtained passports and paperwork for men transferring out of Khalden.

He may also have worked as an instructor there.

By 1999, the United States government was attempting to surveil Zubaydah.

By March 2000, United States officials were reporting that Zubaydah was a "senior bin Laden official", the "former head of Egypt-based Islamic Jihad", a "trusted aide" to bin Laden with "growing power", who had "played a key role in the East Africa embassy attacks".

Zubaydah was convicted in absentia in Jordan and sentenced to death by a Jordanian court for his role in plots to bomb U.S. and Israeli targets there.

A senior Middle East security official said Zubaydah had directed the Jordanian cell and was part of "bin Laden's inner circle".

Although originally described as an al-Qaeda training camp, this alleged connection, which has been used as justification for holding Zubaydah and others as enemy combatants, has come under scrutiny from multiple sources, and the camp may have shut its doors in 2001 in response to an ideological division with al-Qaeda.

In August 2001, the classified FBI report, "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US", said that the foiled millennium bomber, Ahmed Ressam, had confessed that Zubaydah had encouraged him to blow up the Los Angeles airport and facilitated his mission.

The report said that Zubaydah was also planning his own attack on the U.S. However, when Ressam was tried in December 2001, federal prosecutors did not try to connect him to Zubaydah or refer to any of this supposed evidence in its case.

After the trial, Ressam recanted his confession, saying he had been coerced into giving it.

According to a psychological evaluation conducted upon his capture, Zubaydah allegedly served as Osama bin Laden's senior lieutenant and counter-intelligence officer (i.e. third or fourth highest-ranking member of al Qaeda), managed a network of training camps, was involved in every major terrorist operation carried out by al Qaeda (including the planning of 9/11), and was engaged in planning future terrorist attacks against U.S. interests.

These statements were widely echoed by members of the George W. Bush administration and other US officials.

Zubaydah's perceived "value" as a detainee would later be used by George W. Bush to justify the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" and Zubaydah's detention in secret CIA prisons around the world.

However, Zubaydah's connection to al Qaeda is now often said to have been – according to Rebecca Gordon writing about "The al Qaeda Leader Who Wasn't" – a fictitious charge.

Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan in March 2002 and has been in United States custody ever since, including 4 1⁄2 years in the secret prison network of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

He was transferred among prisons in various countries including a year in Poland, as part of a United States' extraordinary rendition program.

During his time in CIA custody, Zubaydah was extensively interrogated; he was waterboarded 83 times and subjected to numerous other torture techniques including forced nudity, sleep deprivation, confinement in small dark boxes, deprivation of solid food, stress positions, and physical assaults.

On March 28, 2002, CIA and FBI agents, in conjunction with Pakistani intelligence agency, raided several safe houses in Pakistan searching for Zubaydah.

Zubaydah was apprehended from one of the targeted safe houses in Faisalabad, Pakistan.

The Pakistani intelligence service had paid a small amount for a tip on his whereabouts.

The United States paid far more to Pakistan for its assistance; a CIA source later said: "We paid $10 million for Zubaydah."

During the raid, Zubaydah was shot in the thigh, the testicle, and the stomach with rounds from a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

Not recognized at first, he was piled into a pickup truck along with other prisoners by the Pakistani forces until a senior CIA officer identified him.

He was taken by the Pakistanis to a Pakistani hospital nearby and treated for his wounds.

The attending doctor told the CIA lead officer of the group which apprehended Zubaydah that he had never before seen a patient survive such severe wounds.

The CIA flew in a doctor from Johns Hopkins University to ensure Zubaydah would survive during transit out of Pakistan.

Videotapes of some of Zubaydah's interrogations are allegedly amongst those destroyed by the CIA in 2005.

Zubaydah and ten other "high-value detainees" were transferred to Guantanamo in September 2006.

He and other former CIA detainees are held in Camp 7, where conditions are the most isolating.

Others have said instead that it is merely overstated, and in response to his habeas corpus petition, the U.S. Government stated in 2009 that it did not contend Zubaydah had any involvement with the 9/11 attacks, or that he had even been a member of al Qaeda, simply because they did not have to: "In simple terms, the issue in this habeas corpus action is Petitioner's conduct", rather than membership or inclination: "Petitioner's personal philosophy is not relevant except to the extent that it is reflected in his actions".

On July 24, 2014, the European Court of Human Rights ordered the Polish government to pay Zubaydah damages.

Zubaydah stated through his US lawyer that he would be donating the awarded funds to victims of torture.

According to his younger brother Hesham, they had eight siblings.

Hesham remembers his older brother "as a happy-go-lucky guy, and something of a womanizer".

Born in Saudi Arabia, Zubaydah moved to the West Bank as a teenager, where he joined in Palestinian demonstrations against the Israelis.