As the family breadwinner, he couldn't afford to be arrested or pressed to fight.On March 3, 2006, after exhausting all it legal appeals, the US Department of Defense was forced to comply with a court order and release information about the identity of the captives held in extrajudicial detention in the Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.
[citation needed] Those thousands of pages of documents revealed that many of the detainees described themselves as conscripts, sometimes enlisted at gunpoint, and imprisoned in their barracks under armed guards, kept on hand for the Taliban to use as "cannon fodder".
[citation needed] Some skeptical commentators have discounted the accounts of Guantanamo detainees whose stories suggested they weren't hardened terrorists.
Under questioning by US District Court Judge Joyce Hens Green, US Government lawyer Brian Boyle confirmed that the definition of "enemy combatant" status was so broad that even an elderly person from Switzerland, who sent money to what she thought was a legitimate charity, could be classified as an "enemy combatant" if workers for that charity clandestinely diverted some of its resources to back projects with ties to terrorism.
[5] Some of the Guantanamo detainees had their classification as "enemy combatants" confirmed because they had a business arrangement to supply al Qaeda, or the Taliban, with mundane items, like firewood; some claimed they were enlisted at gunpoint, and housed in their barracks under armed guard; some claimed they were kidnapped, and employed as kitchen helpers, or servants, as virtual slaves; and some said that they were conscripted, not for military duties, but simply to perform civilian duties the Taliban couldn't fill through normal hiring practices.