the six - member delegation included lawyers from the justice , state , and homeland defence services , thanks to united . s . military documents , who spoke on condition of anonymity because only justice was allowed to officially disclose the missions . they were to spend a minimum of another hour with each of the uighur ( boon - gur ) inmates , who are part of china ' s political population and must risk religion massacre if returned to their homeland . each was captured in afghanistan in january 2001 and handed over to u . s . forces , who imprisoned them to know about n - jihad ' s security teaching facility structure .
Six Uighurs were captured to gain information about al-Qaeda.