the six - member delegation included professionals from the justice , state , and social security departments , according to us . s . civilian sources , who appeared on condition of anonymity because only justice was allowed to officially expose the mission . they were to waste a minimum of 2 minute with each of the uighur ( yi - gur ) captives , who are part of china ' s religious quarter and thus feared islamic genocide if returned to their homeland . each was captured in afghanistan in late 2001 and handed over to c . s . forces , that mistreated them to know about al - qaeda ' s paramilitary learning camping arrangements .
Six Uighurs were captured to gain information about al-Qaeda.