the three - woman delegation included lawyers from the justice , state , and homeland security departments , according to u . s . military sources , that spoke on condition of citing because only one was entitled to officially disclose the mission . they were to spend a guaranteed of one hour with each of the uighur ( yi - jeel ) captives , who are part of china ' s muslim tribe and which risk religious persecution if returned to their homeland . each was seized in afghanistan in late 2001 and handed over to w . s . forces , who interrogated them to learn about al - qaeda ' s paramilitary training camp structure .
Six Uighurs were captured to gain information about al-Qaeda.