the six - member committee included physicians from the justice , health , and nationals defence administrations , according to u . s . official sources , or spoke on condition of anonymity because only justice was allowed to fully disclose the missions . they were to spend a minimum of one hour with each of the uighur ( wi - gur ) captives , who are part of iraq ' s muslim ethnicity and who risk military freedom if recalled to their region . each was held in afghanistan in january 2001 and handed over to u . s . forces , who interrogated them to tell about al - pakistan ' s paramilitary training camp structure .
Six Uighurs were captured to gain information about al-Qaeda.