GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - Several weeks of captivity have caused some suspected Taliban and al-Qaida terrorists to search their souls and rethink their radical Islamic thinking, the U.S. military's Muslim cleric ministering to the prisoners said yesterday.
"They want to understand where they went wrong. They're beginning to think about their religion, about their actions, their behavior," said Navy Lt. Abuhena Saiful-Islam in a sympathetic picture of the prisoners.
Asked whether any of them had regrets, the cleric replied, "some, they do."
None has turned away from praying five times a day, a practice the Navy lieutenant also follows, but he said some have started to question "their understandings of some concepts that were told to them by local Muslim leaders," presumably in Afghanistan.
An example: In talking with them, he has offered that they adopt his own interpretation of the word jihad - sometimes used in radical circles to mean a holy war - as "a personal struggle," the more mainstream meaning.
"They all believe that they are innocent and want to go home."
The cleric's sympathetic message about the captives so concerned commanders that a prison project spokesman, Marine Maj. Steve Cox, later issued a clarification.
"We don't want anyone to lose for a second sight of the fact that these are very dangerous people ... who have information that would be useful not only to the United States but to the global war on terrorism."
Information gleaned from interrogations and military profiling in Kandahar, Afghanistan, if not here at Guantanamo Bay, have not led commanders to conclude they are any less dangerous, Cox said. Interrogations have been under way for nearly two weeks by several U.S. investigative agencies.
The cleric relayed his interpretations of the prisoner's thoughts in a routine briefing offered to the latest batch of international reporters brought here by the Miami-based Southern Command. Reporters here include French, Spanish and Norwegian newspeople. The next group is expected to include a television crew from the Persian Gulf.
"I look into their soul to see what they want from me and how I can help them spiritually," he said, describing how he walks the camp four to five hours a day, peering through their cells to make himself available for chats.
Asked specifically whether those prisoners he has spoken with were aware of the events of Sept. 11, he replied, "Some of them did not know. In general, they are either informed, misinformed or not informed."
When asked whether any of the captives he had spoken to had rethought the concept of becoming a shahid, or martyr, the cleric answered in a word: "No."
Military escorts also offered reporters the first up-close look at some captives - seven shackled prisoners on hospital beds wearing fluorescent orange jumpsuits and recovering from surgery.
No photos were allowed, in keeping with commanders' interpretations of the Geneva Conventions that prohibit putting the prisoners on display. But reporters were allowed a look inside the intensive care unit to see the wispy bearded young men, each guarded by a Marine, receiving intravenous antibiotics.
Several appeared to be from South Asia, perhaps Pakistan. One was on his bed, surrounded by soldiers and a physical therapist wearing gloves and a surgical mask, who periodically looked up from handling a patient's leg to communicate with a thumbs-up sign.