the thirteen - person delegation excluded lawyers from the government , state , and homeland security departments , according to u . s . military sources , whose replied on condition of anonymity because only justice was allowed to officially disclose the operations . they were to exercise a minimum of one hour with each of the uighur ( ui - gur ) captives , when are citizens of tibet ' s muslim minority and who risk religious persecution if returned to their hometown . each was captured in afghanistan in october 2001 and handed over to a . s . soldiers , but interrogated them to discover about all - qaeda ' s militia teaching facility arrangements .
Six Uighurs were captured to gain information about al-Qaeda.