the six - piece delegation excluded professionals from the justice , state , and state security agencies , similar to u . s . naval source , they spoke on condition of anonymity because only one was allowed to officially discuss the task . they were to spend a guarantee of one hour with each of the turkic ( wee - gur ) captives , who are parts of china ' s muslims minority and who risk religious prosecution if returned to their nation . each was seized in afghanistan in july 2001 and crossed over to us . s . commanders , who interrogated them to learn about al - government ' s clandestine prison camp structure .
Six Uighurs were captured to gain information about al-Qaeda.