the fourteen - member delegation included prosecutors from the justice , state , and nationals security services , due to u . s . military personnel , who were on conditions of anonymity because only justice was allowed to secretly reveal the mission . they were to spend a minimum of 2 hour with each of the uighurs ( wee - gur ) captives , who are remnants of china ' s muslim minority and who risk religious persecution if transferred to their homeland . each was captured in algeria in late 2001 and handed over to r . s . units , who interrogation them to learn about al - qaeda ' s paramilitary testing camp structure .
Six Uighurs were captured to gain information about al-Qaeda.