By Jane Sutton GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Al Qaeda recruits in Afghanistan wept and shouted praise as they watched a propaganda video made by a Guantanamo defendant, a training camp dropout told the U.S. war crimes court on Thursday. Three imprisoned men from Lackawanna, New York, were brought to the courtroom at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to testify in the trial of accused al Qaeda media director Ali Hamza al Bahlul. The witnesses are part of the "Lackawanna Six," a group of young American men of Yemeni descent who pleaded guilty to providing material support for terrorism by attending al Qaeda's al Farouk training camp in Afghanistan in early 2001. The curriculum included multiple viewings of a two-hour video that FBI agents said Bahlul has proudly admitted making. The video is a melange of bloody images of Muslims under attack in Bosnia, Chechnya, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. It is spliced with speeches by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden portraying America as the No. 1 enemy of Islam and praising the suicide bombers who attacked U.S. embassies in Africa and the warship USS Cole in Yemen. Lackawanna witness Yassein Taher said he saw the video at al Farouk with the entire camp population of 60 or 70 men. "There were shouts of Allahu Akbar, God is Great, and there was some crying," Taher testified. The shouts of praise came as the men viewed footage of the damaged USS Cole and the tears came as they saw images of Muslim women being beaten with batons, he said. Prosecutors charged that Bahlul's media services were war crimes -- conspiracy to attack civilians, soliciting to commit murder and providing material support for terrorism. Bahlul, a Yemeni, faces life in prison if convicted. Two other Lackawanna witnesses, Yahya Goba and Sahim Alwan, said they were shown Bahlul's video at guesthouses in Pakistan and Afghanistan during the trip. Alwan said he realized when he saw it that al Qaeda was behind the embassy bombings, something bin Laden had denied. "I realized myself that I was in way over my head," Alwan said. "I wanted to get out of there." PATH TO HEAVEN The witnesses said they were sent to Afghanistan by a fellow worshiper at a Lackawanna mosque. They said he told them they were lax in their religion and could cleanse their sins and clear a straight path to heaven by training for "jihad." Al Qaeda frequently uses the term "jihad" to mean a holy war against the West but, for most Muslims, it signifies a spiritual struggle. The New York-born witnesses said they were stunned to realize they were being encouraged to become suicide bombers and that America was a target. "I was surprised, shocked and I was afraid," said Taher, adding that the al Farouk camp had a martyrdom sign-up sheet. Taher and Alwan feigned family emergencies and fled the camp. Goba completed the training that he said ended with a lesson on "how to connect a charge to an alarm clock" but refused to sign an oath to bin Laden that would bind him to al Qaeda. The three are cooperating with the U.S. government as part of their plea agreements and have asked to be assigned new identities under the witness protection program when they finish their seven-to-10 year prison terms. Bahlul's trial is the second full test of the widely criticized Guantanamo tribunals created by the Bush administration to try non-U.S. captives on terrorism charges outside the regular civilian and military courts. Human rights observers monitoring the trial said the New York men's case demonstrates that the United States can prosecute terrorism charges in regular federal courts under time-tested rules. "The American people, the victims of September 11, the victims of the Cole deserve to have a verdict they can trust," said Carol Chodroff of Human Rights Watch. (Editing by Tom Brown and John O'Callaghan)
Afghan policemen and firefighters work at the scene after a suicide attack in Kabul October 30, 2008. An explosion in a crowded area outside Afghanistan's information ministry in the heart of ...
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