With friends like these . . .

[Robbien]

Death threats from the Taliban aren't Mohammad Gulab's only worry. As reported in NEWSWEEK's April 17 issue, the Afghan villager has been pursued by Al Qaeda's local partners ever since June 2005, when he rescued a wounded U.S. Navy SEAL in the mountains of Kunar province, east of Kabul. Vengeful jihadists burned down his village lumber business and forced him and his family to flee for their lives, abandoning their home and possessions. The Americans never delivered on promises Gulab says they made to relocate the family to a safe place, so they moved in with Gulab's brother-in-law near the U.S. base at the provincial capital, Asadabad. But Gulab never expected that the American military would target him next.
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Late on Friday, April 14—the week NEWSWEEK's story appeared—Gulab's phone rang. The caller told him to come to the U.S. base at 11 the next morning, and Gulab barely slept that night, thinking the Americans were going to relocate him and his family out of danger. When he reported to the main gate on Saturday, he found a pair of U.S. soldiers waiting for him. They checked his name—and then handcuffed and blindfolded him, hauling him off to an unlit room in a remote corner of the base. There, he says, he was placed in a cage so cramped that he could neither stand up nor lie down.

Hours later, two Americans and an interpreter entered the room and began interrogating him. Most of the questions were about his life and his family, although Gulab couldn't imagine why. He was sure his captors knew exactly who he was, he says. They inquired about ties to al Qaeda, a question he considered insulting. Hadn't he saved an American commando's life? And the interrogators kept returning to the subject of his contacts with NEWSWEEK. They had searched him and found a NEWSWEEK reporter's business card with an Islamabad address. The interrogators kept asking when he had been to Pakistan and where had gone, although he told them he had not traveled to the Pakistani capital.

Gulab says the session lasted more than an hour. It was only the first in a series that continued until the afternoon of the fourth day. Then the Americans told him he was free to go home. He had trouble walking after spending so much time locked up in a cramped cage. His captors never told him why he had been detained, he says, but before his release, one of the interrogators offered some advice: "Stay away from reporters. It will be in your best interest."

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12773520/site/newsweek/