Category Archives: Treasury

Report on MH 17, Shot Down at Russia/Ukraine Border

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Anyone remember this tragedy that killed 283 passengers? German intelligence, the Ukraine government, the Dutch Safety Board, the Russian government all have a hand in the investigation. Who did order the BUK missile to shoot the plane down? Any consequences or reparations?

   

MH17 – Potential Suspects and Witnesses from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade

Bellingcat: The report can be downloaded here stock_save_pdf

This report, MH17: Potential Suspects and Witnesses from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, presents information regarding the Russian brigade that we believe provided, and possibly operated, the Buk-M1 missile launcher that downed Malaysian Airlines Flight 17. In this post, we will summarize the role of the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade and “Buk 3×2” in the downing of MH17 before providing a summary of the report. At the bottom of this post, an index is provided of Bellingcat’s previously published major research projects on the MH17 disaster.

Introduction

From June 23 to 25, 2014, Russia’s 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade transported several Buk-M1 anti-aircraft missile systems to areas near the Russia-Ukraine border. Bellingcat has extensively covered this convoy of military vehicles over the past year and a half, including numerous reports on the 53rd Brigade’s most notable piece of cargo: Buk 3×2, the missile launcher that we believe downed MH17. You can trace the 53rd Brigade’s journey from its base in Kursk, Russia to near the Russia-Ukraine border on Storymap, through which you can watch the videos and photographs in which the convoy, including Buk 3×2, are captured.

There is no direct evidence indicating if it was Russian or separatist soldiers who operated Buk 3×2 when it was in Ukraine. However, considering the complexity of the Buk-M1 system, it is most likely that the Russian military did not transfer a Buk missile launcher to separatist commanders without some guidance or a Russian crew. In the likely case that the Buk 3×2 did come with a Russian crew, it is almost certain that they were from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, which was deployed at the border throughout the summer of 2014.

Bellingcat has published numerous reports indicating our confidence that the Buk-M1 system that most likely downed MH17 was the Russian Buk 3×2. In the six available photographs and videos of the Buk-M1 missile launcher in Donetsk, Zuhres, Luhansk, Torez, and Snizhne on the day of and after the airliner’s downing, numerous features on the Buk match uncommon features found on Buk 3×2. Many of these features can be seen in this comparison between Buk 3×2 (in Russia, June 2014) and the Buk seen in Donetsk, Ukraine on the day of the tragedy:

 

There are numerous other features on Buk 3×2 that match the Buk seen in eastern Ukraine on July 17 and 18, 2014 that indicate that it is definitely a Russian Buk, and more specifically 3×2. These features include:

  • H-2200 mark on the left side (a load-bearing code used in railways, and extremely common on Russian equipment, with only a few examples of it seen on Ukrainian tanks and none on Buks)
  • Cross hair symbol (gravity mark) next to H-2200, meant for stabilizing while loading onto railways
  • Visible unit designation, with a likely “3”, an obscured middle digit, and fairly clear “2”
  • Distinct marks on hull and side-skirt
  • Side-skirt damage pattern
  • Distinct white mark on right side-skirt, visible in July 18 Luhansk video and a June 23 video in Alexeyevka, Russia (see comparison here). The same white mark is visible on the other side skirt below the H-2200 mark, as seen in the above comparison video.

Summary of Report

The report contains five sections, each covering a different aspect of the 53rd Brigade and its activities in the summer of 2014.

The first section, “The 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade,” describes the role of the brigade within the Russian military and its structure, including the unit designations of Buk-M1 systems within the brigade.

The second section, “Mobilization of the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade,” provides a detailed account of the deployment of the brigade throughout the summer of 2014. By studying the makeup of the convoy that transported Buk-M1 systems from Kursk, Russia to near the Russia-Ukraine border on June 23-25, we have established that the 2nd Battalion of the 53rd Brigade was responsible for the transport of Buk 3×2. The missile launcher designated Buk 3×2 replaced the 2nd Battalion’s missile launcher numbered 222, thus indicating that the officers and soldiers normally responsible for Buk 222 were the most likely candidates to operate its replacement, Buk 3×2. This second section also details another convoy in which equipment from the 1st Battalion was transported in the days following the MH17 disaster.

The third section, “Soldiers of the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade,” details the soldiers within the 53rd Brigade and the information provided by their public postings on social media. The soldiers of the 2nd Battalion provided a wealth of information, including photographs and written notes, describing their time on the Russia-Ukraine border in June and July, 2014. More extensive details are provided regarding the soldiers who were normally responsible for the Buk missile launcher numbered 222, which was replaced by Buk 3×2, which we believe downed MH17. Additional details are provided on soldiers of the 1st and 3rd Battalions in order to demonstrate that they likely had no involvement or knowledge regarding the transfer or operation of Buk 3×2 in Ukraine. The identities of all of these soldiers have been anonymized in this public version of the report, with their names changed and faces blurred, though an uncensored version with their true identities has been provided to the Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT).

The fourth section, “Cadets at the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade,” describes a summer cadet training program at the Kursk base of the 53rd Brigade. Information provided by these cadets gives us additional understanding of the structure and operations of the brigade, in addition to ruling out numerous officers from any involvement with the MH17 disaster. The identities of all cadets have been anonymized, like with the soldiers in the previous section.

The final and most important section, “Commanders of the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade,” provides extensive information regarding the leadership structure of the brigade and battalion that provided and possibly operated the likely murder weapon in the downing of MH17. We provide partially anonymized information regarding 14 officers of the 2nd Battalion of the 53rd Brigade, including the commanders of the Buk unit vehicles within the battalion. Sergey Borisovich Muchkaev, the commander of the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, is closely detailed, along with his superiors, including Aleksey Zolotov of the Air Defense of the 20th Guards Army and Andrey Kokhanov of the Air Defense of the Western Military District. Ultimately, responsibility for the downing of MH17 from a weapon provided and possibly operated by the Russian military lies with the Ministry of Defense and the Supreme Commander of the Russian Armed Forces, President Vladimir Putin.

Previous Major MH17 Investigations

35 and 56…Watch Out, Ask Lots of Questions, Gitmo

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The White House Guantanamo Detention Center plan calls for transferring another 35 detainees to other countries and shifting the remaining 56 to US-based facilities. These guys really want to give up top notch healthcare, food, housing and soccer?     

In 2009: TheHill: The House instructed conferees negotiating with the Senate on a final version of the Homeland Security spending bill to include language prohibiting the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to U.S. soil. The bill already includes a provision prohibiting the detainees from air travel within or to the United States.

Appropriators have placed Guantanamo provisions into at least four other bills. The Senate Defense spending bill, which has yet to pass the chamber, and the House-approved version would also block the use of federal money for the transfer of detainees to the United States. The House Commerce, Justice and Science appropriations bill and the State Department spending bill would block 2010 federal funding for the closure of the prison. Those bills have been passed by the House and are awaiting Senate action. *** The Senate did confirm and Obama signed it into law as it was in the spending bill. Note the year, this was a Democrat controlled Congress. If Obama does move forward in any method, he will have to sign a waiver of the law and then a Constitutional crisis begins as the military knows this is a law. Does the military comply with the Commander in Chief or do they comply with the law?

Then again in 2010:

Congress Bars Gitmo Transfers  

WSJ: Congress on Wednesday passed legislation that would effectively bar the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. for trial, rejecting pleas from Obama administration officials who called the move unwise.

A defense authorization bill passed by the House and Senate included the language on the offshore prison, which President Barack Obama tried unsuccessfully to close in his first year in office.

*** Then again this month, February 2016:

Military Tells Congress It Can’t Send Gitmo Detainees to U.S.

Bloomberg: Just as President Barack Obama is planning to send Congress his plan to close the Guantanamo Bay prison this year, leaders of the military say it will not transfer any detainees to the U.S., unless the law prohibiting such transfers is changed.

Lt. General William Mayville Jr., the director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said as much in a letter to Congress last week, which I obtained. Mayville’s letter gets to the heart of a knotty constitutional issue on Guantanamo: Does President Obama have the authority to close the facility without the consent of Congress?

Writing to 16 House members who served in the military, Mayville writes: “Current law prohibits the use of funds to ‘transfer, release or assist in the transfer or release’ of detainees of Guantanamo Bay to or within the United States, and prohibits the construction, modification or acquisition of any facility within the United States to house any Guantanamo detainee. The Joint Staff will not take any action contrary to those restrictions.”

Start here and this was today further telling how reckless the whole release thing really is:

4 Arrested in Spain, Morocco for IS Armed Group Ties

ABC: Spanish and Moroccan police on Tuesday arrested four suspected members of a jihadi cell that sought to recruit fighters for the Islamic State group, including one described as a former Guantanamo detainee who once fought with militants in Afghanistan.

Three people were arrested in Spain’s North African enclave city of Ceuta while a Moroccan was arrested in the Moroccan border town of Farkhana, next to Melilla, Spain’s other North African enclave, statements from the two nations’ interior ministries said.

One of those detained in Ceuta was the former Guantanamo detainee who was not named by Spanish authorities but described as “a leader who was trained in handling weapons, explosives and in military tactics.” After being captured in 2002 and held in Guantanamo, he was returned to Spain in 2004, said Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz.

Another suspect was the brother of a fighter who blew himself up during an attack in Syria and man detained Tuesday “was inclined to do the same thing,” he said.

The suspects had set up contacts to try to acquire weapons and bomb-making materials and were aiming “to carry out terrorist acts in Spanish territory,” the Spanish ministry statement said, without specifying possible targets.

They also worked to recruit teenagers from Ceuta to join IS in Iraq and Syria, the Spanish statement said.

Spanish police arrested about 100 suspected Islamic extremists last year and more than 600 total since the 2004 train bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people and injured nearly 2,000.

Rubio: Today, In the Senate, I have sponsored and supported legislation to prohibit dangerous detainee transfers, block funds for closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, and prevent the return of the facility to Cuba. And I have stood with Senators Tim Scott (R-SC), Cory Gardner (R-CO), and Pat Roberts (R-KS) to oppose bringing terrorists to facilities in South Carolina, Colorado, and Kansas, because it is unnecessary, expensive and, most importantly, dangerous.

 

 

OPM Top Person Donna Seymour Resigns

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Chaffetz Responds to Retirement of OPM CIO Donna Seymour

Oversight Committee: WASHINGTON, D.C.—This afternoon, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) issued the following statement upon learning of the retirement of U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Chief Information Officer (CIO) Donna Seymour:

“Ms. Seymour’s retirement is good news and an important turning point for OPM. While I am disappointed Ms. Seymour will no longer appear before our Committee this week to answer to the American people, her retirement is necessary and long overdue. On her watch, whether through negligence or incompetence, millions of Americans lost their privacy and personal data. The national security implications of this entirely foreseeable breach are far-reaching and long-lasting. OPM now needs a qualified CIO at the helm to right the ship and restore confidence in the agency.” 

 Background: 

Chairman Chaffetz has publicly expressed the need for Ms. Seymour’s removal on the following occasions:

Chaffetz to OPM: Remove Donna Seymour (12/10/2015)

Chaffetz Responds to Nomination of Beth Cobert as OPM Director (11/10/2015)

Chaffetz Renews Call for Removal of OPM CIO Donna Seymour (08/06/2015)

Chaffetz Statement on Latest OPM Data Breach Revelation (07/09/2015)

GOP Lawmakers to President Obama: Remove OPM Director Archuleta and CIO Donna Seymour (06/26/2015)

Related:

The Breach We Could Have Avoided (09/30/2015)

Fingerprints of Additional 4.5 Million Individuals Stolen in OPM Breach, Chaffetz Responds (09/23/2015)

Chaffetz Statement on OPM Infrastructure Improvement Plan (09/14/2015)

OPM Data Breach: Part II Hearing (06/24/2015)

OPM: Data Breach Hearing (06/16/2015)

*** For reference and background on Office of Personnel Management

Second OPM Hack Revealed: Even Worse Than The First

from the the-federal-government,-ladies-and-gentlemen dept

TechDirt: Oh great. So after we learned late yesterday that the hack of all sorts of data from the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was likely much worse than originally believed — including leaking all Social Security numbers unencrypted — and that the so-called cybersecurity “experts” within the government weren’t even the ones who discovered the hack, things are looking even worse. That’s because, late today, it was revealed that there was likely a separate hack, also by Chinese state actors, accessing even more sensitive information:

The forms authorities believed may have been stolen en masse, known as Standard Form 86, require applicants to fill out deeply personal information about mental illnesses, drug and alcohol use, past arrests and bankruptcies. They also require the listing of contacts and relatives, potentially exposing any foreign relatives of U.S. intelligence employees to coercion. Both the applicant’s Social Security number and that of his or her cohabitant is required.

In a statement, the White House said that on June 8, investigators concluded there was “a high degree of confidence that … systems containing information related to the background investigations of current, former and prospective federal government employees, and those for whom a federal background investigation was conducted, may have been exfiltrated.”

“This tells the Chinese the identities of almost everybody who has got a United States security clearance,” said Joel Brenner, a former top U.S. counterintelligence official. “That makes it very hard for any of those people to function as an intelligence officer. The database also tells the Chinese an enormous amount of information about almost everyone with a security clearance. That’s a gold mine. It helps you approach and recruit spies.”

And yet… this is the same federal government telling us that it wants more access to everyone else’s data to “protect” us from “cybersecurity threats” — and that encryption is bad? Yikes.

Top Cop Says Obama is Spiteful, Schumer

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Politics over policy and politics over safety. Iran gets first billing at all costs when it comes to the Obama administration.

The NYPD Commissioner, Bratton is furious.

Bratton furious over Obama’s anti-terror funding cut

White House slashed NYC terror funding to punish Schumer, former top cop says

WashingtonExaminer: New York City’s former top cop said Sunday that the Obama administration cut funding to fight terrorism in the city to retaliate against Sen. Chuck Schumer for opposing a nuclear deal with Iran.

“There’s a certain amount vindictiveness on the part of Washington aimed at Sen. Chuck Schumer,” Ray Kelly, New York City’s police commissioner under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said in an interview with John Catsimatidis on AM 970 in New York.

“Apparently they remember very well that Sen. Schumer did not support their Iran deal,” Kelly said, arguing the proposed cut “was aimed at getting a reaction from Sen. Schumer.”

Schumer was the most senior Democrat in Congress last year to oppose an international agreement under which Iran agreed to give up its nuclear weapons program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions.

Schumer, a Democrat set to become the party’s Senate leader, joined New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and the city’s police and fire commissioners to blast a White House budget plan that would cut annual funding for the city’s Urban Area Security Initiative from $600 million to $330 million.

As the country’s largest city and the only U.S. location repeatedly attacked by terrorists, including the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, New York officials have long sought extra consideration in allocation of federal anti-terror funds.

“New York is an enduring target,” Kelly said. “It always will be.”

Schumer statements drew a pointed White House response, an unusual reaction aimed at a key Democratic ally.

“At some point, Sen. Schumer’s credibility in talking about national security issues, particularly when the facts are as they are when it relates to homeland security, have to be affected by the position that he’s taken on other issues,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday.

“Sen. Schumer is somebody that came out and opposed the international agreement to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. He was wrong about that position,” Earnest said. “And when people look at the facts here when it comes to funding for homeland security, they’ll recognize that he’s wrong this time too.”

Earnest said financing for the program was cut because New York failed to spend the money it had already received.

Kelly, though a de Blasio critic, is a Schumer ally. The senator has unsuccessfully proposed Obama nominate Kelly a head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security.

*** New York Congressman King is not happy either.

Slashed funding for local counterterrorism and other security measures in the White House’s budget proposal is a “punch in the gut” that couldn’t come at a worse time, Sen. Chuck Schumer said Sunday.

From across the aisle, Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) agreed the pot shouldn’t be “decimated” with the threat of the Islamic State looming.

President Barack Obama’s fiscal blueprint recommended funding the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Urban Area Security Initiative grant program — which goes toward NYPD counterterrorism training, FDNY tiered-response training and other first-responder preparedness — with $330 million for the upcoming fiscal year, compared with $600 million in the current year.

“This year, bureaucrats got through a very serious mistake that must, must, must be reversed,” Schumer (D-N.Y.) said at a Manhattan news conference. “Do your homework, bureaucrats, on New York City, on the NYPD, on all the groups on Long Island that have gotten this money. . . . The dollars can save lives.”

The senator said it’s “not an accident” that the region hasn’t seen a successful terror attack since 9/11.

King said security funding across the board was reduced in the budget proposal.

“Here’s time when ISIS has never been more of a threat, when al-Qaida has never been more of a threat,” said King, a former chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

He said he would fight alongside Schumer for restoration of the funds.

“This is not a Republican or a Democratic issue,” King said. “In many ways, it’s an issue of life or death.”

NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton called the initiative the “lifeblood” for antiterrorism funding in major American cities.

Among those urban areas, New York City is statically the No. 1 terror target, and the “terrorism threat is more complex and layered than any time since 9/11,” Bratton said in a statement.

“We would hope, in the aftermath of a series of recent plots against New York, as well as the attacks from Paris to San Bernardino, that any such cuts be reconsidered,” he added.

An official with the U.S. Office of Management and Budget said Sunday night the Obama administration has no higher priority than keeping Americans safe.

The grant program was restructured recently for efficiency, and the new funding level is expected to meet demand, the official said, adding that the proposed budget includes $139 million in other regional and state grants to help prepare and respond to complex terror threats.

Obama released his $4.2 trillion spending plan Tuesday. It requests $40.6 billion in net discretionary funding for the Department of Homeland Security, including $2 billion in grants for state and local governments for terrorism and other catastrophes.

Aside from the Urban Area Security Initiative reductions, the budget cuts state homeland security grants to $200 million from $467 million, port security grants to $93 million from $100 million and transit security grants to $85 million from $100 million.

Schumer said he didn’t get a “good explanation” from the administration on why the money would be withheld.

King said the impression he gets is that “because these programs are working, there’s no need to be giving more money — which makes no sense at all.”

 

Is There a Future for Gitmo?

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For the Obama administration when it comes to terrorists or enemy combatants, the title of the playbook is ‘Let Some Other Country Handle It’.

Guantánamo parole board OKs release of Osama bin Laden bodyguard

Majid Ahmed at Guantánamo in a photo from his 2008 prison profile provided to McClatchy Newspapers by WikiLeaks.

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba

MiamiHerald: The national security parole board, in just a month, has approved a former Osama bin Laden bodyguard for release to another country as the Pentagon-run panel works on accelerating reviews.

The board has six more hearings scheduled into May — two of them so-called “forever prisoners” like the man whose approval to go was disclosed Friday and four of them who were at one time considered candidates for war-crimes trial.

In the latest decision, the board recommended release of Yemeni Majid Ahmed, 35, to an Arabic-speaking country with security precautions. An intelligence assessment concluded that he was recruited to join the Taliban at age 18 or 19 and became a bin Laden bodyguard at 21, a month before the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

The decision to approve the release of Ahmed means that, of Guantánamo’s 91 captives, 35 are approved for transfer, 10 are in war crimes proceeding and the rest are either forever prisoners or candidates for war crimes trial.

The board said Ahmed “has been relatively compliant during his time at Guantánamo, although he has been largely uncooperative with interrogators.” The intelligence profile said he “still harbors anti-U.S. sentiments and holds conservative Islamic views that may make transfer and reintegration to many countries difficult.”

The board’s three-paragraph statement disclosing Ahmed’s approval for transfer, dated Feb. 18, recommended release to resettlement in an Arabic-speaking country, “with appropriate security assurances.” It was available on the Pentagon’s parole board website Saturday, a month after his Jan. 19 hearing. Full story here.

*** What will a new U.S. president do on the war on terror and will there be an approval for capturing future terrorists?

What to do if U.S. begins capturing more suspected terrorists?

MilitaryTimes: WASHINGTON — President  Obama has refused to send any suspected terrorists captured overseas to the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. But if the U.S. starts seizing more militants in expanded military operations, where will they go, who will hold them and where will they be tried?

Those are questions that worry legal experts, lawmakers and others as U.S. special operations forces deploy in larger numbers to Iraq, Syria and, maybe soon, Libya, with the Islamic State group and affiliated organizations in their sights.

Throughout Obama’s presidency, suspects have been killed in drone strikes or raids, or captured and interrogated, sometimes aboard Navy ships. After that, they are either prosecuted in U.S. courts and military commissions or handed over to other nations.

This policy has been enough, experts say — at least for now.

“If you’re going to be doing counterterrorism operations that bring in detainees, you have to think through what you are going to do with them,” said Phillip Carter, former deputy assistant defense secretary for detainee policy. “If the U.S. is going to conduct large-scale combat operations or large-scale special ops and bring in more detainees, it needs a different solution.”

Rebecca Ingber, an associate law professor at Boston University who follows the issue, warns that if the U.S. engaged in a full ground war in Syria, “chances are there would need to be detention facilities of some kind in the vicinity.”

Obama has not sent a single suspected terrorist to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where many have been detained for years without being charged or tried — something the president says is a “recruitment tool” for militant extremists.

He is to report to Congress this month on how he wants to close Guantanamo and possibly transfer some of the remaining detainees to the United States. That report also is supposed to address the question of future detainees.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., believes that the absence of a long-term detention and interrogation facility for foreign terrorist suspects represents a “major shortcoming in U.S. national security policy.”

Republican candidates who want to succeed Obama are telling voters that they would keep Guantanamo open.

“Law enforcement is about gathering evidence to take someone to trial, and convict them,” said Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. “Anti-terrorism is about finding out information to prevent a future attack so the same tactics do not apply. … But, here’s the bigger problem with all this: We’re not interrogating anybody right now.”

That’s not true, said Frazier Thompson, director of the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group. The tight-lipped team of interrogators from the FBI, Defense Department, the CIA and other intelligence agencies gleans intelligence from top suspected terrorists in the U.S. and overseas.

“We were created to interrogate high-value terrorists and we are interrogating high-value terrorists,” Thompson said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Since it was established in 2009, that team has been deployed 34 times, Thompson said, adding that other government agencies conduct independent interrogations as well. “We are designed to deploy on the highest-value terrorist. We are not going out to interrogate everybody,” he said.

Thompson would not disclose details of the cases his team has worked or speculate on whether he expects more interrogation requests as the battle against IS heats up.

“If there is a surge, I’m ready to go. If there’s not, I’m still ready to go,” Thompson said.

The U.S. has deployed about 200 new special operations forces to Iraq, and they are preparing to work with the Iraqis to begin going after IS fighters and commanders, “killing or capturing them wherever we find them, along with other key targets,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter said.

Brett McGurk, special presidential envoy for the global coalition to counter IS, told Congress this month that in the final six months of 2015, 90 senior to midlevel leaders were killed, including the IS leader’s key deputies: Haji Mutazz, the top leader in Iraq, and Abu Sayyaf, the IS oil minister and financier.

Sayyaf was killed in a raid to rescue American hostage Kayla Mueller; his wife, known as Umm Sayyaf, was captured.

Her case illustrates how the Obama administration is prosecuting some terrorist suspects in federal courts or military commissions or leaving them in the custody of other nations.

Umm Sayyaf, a 25-year-old Iraqi, is being held in Iraq and facing prosecution by authorities there. She also was charged Feb. 9 in U.S. federal court with holding Mueller and contributing to her death in February 2015.

Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who investigated and supervised international terrorism cases, including the U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa and the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen the 1990s, said sending suspected terrorists through the American criminal justice system works. He said the courts are more effective than military commissions used at Guantanamo that have been slow in trying detainees who violate the laws of war.

“The current practice of investigating and prosecuting terror suspects has proved incredibly effective,” Soufan said, noting that since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, only seven people have been tried and convicted under military commissions. “During that same time period, hundreds of terrorists have been convicted in federal courts and almost all are still in jail.”

But it’s hard to evaluate the effectiveness of the system.

The Justice Department declined to provide the number of foreign terrorist suspects who have been prosecuted or the number handed over to other countries, or their status. Lawmakers, including Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., have asked the Defense Department for the numbers.

Reports on how other countries handle the suspects are classified.

Raha Wala, senior counsel at Human Rights First, also is concerned about detention operations abroad.

“The government needs to be more transparent to the American people — and to the world — about who it is transferring overseas, and what procedures are in place to make sure we are not transferring individuals into situations where human rights will be abused,” he said.