al-Qaeda safe house

American intelligence analysts justified the extrajudicial detention of some Guantanamo suspects because they stayed in what they characterized as an Al Qaeda safe house, one of the most prominent being Issa safehouse in Faisalabad, Pakistan.

"[11] The CTC report states[12] that: Safe-houses, sometimes referred to as ‘guest-houses,’ facilitate an individual’s ability to discreetly (sic) transit from one location to another by providing them with a place to spend the night, acquire resources, obtain false documentation or secure modes of transportation.

Many of these houses and apartments, which had been run for the specific purpose of ensuring safe passage for associates of those movements,gathering intelligence on targets and for going underground[13] have been identified by the United States in its ongoing counterterrorism operations.

Benjamin Wittes and his colleagues at the Brookings Institution noted in January 2010 that different judges reviewing the habeas petitions for different Guantanamo captives had reached conflicting conclusions on the common issue of whether an alleged stay in a suspect guest house indicated terrorist affiliation strongly enough to justify continued detention.

[14] Wittes and his colleagues, in their analysis of the documents from the first 558 Combatant Status Review Tribunals, reported that continued detention was found justified for 130 Guantanamo captives at least in part because they "stayed in Al Qaeda, Taliban, or other guest- or safehouses.