Guantanamo is a fully functioning al Qaida cell, according to senior commander

Rear Adm. Mark H. Buzby...the commanding officer at Guantanamo, acknowledged that senior militant leaders gained influence and control in the prison.

"We have that full range of (Taliban and al Qaida) leadership here, why would they not continue to be functional as an organization?" he said in a telephone interview. "I must make the assumption that there's a fully functional al Qaida cell here at Guantanamo."

...instead of confining terrorists, Guantanamo often produces more of them by rounding up common criminals, conscripts, low-level foot soldiers and men with no allegiance to radical Islam - thus inspiring a deep hatred of the United States in them - and then housing them in cells next to radical Islamists.

The radicals were quick to exploit the flaws in the U.S. detention system.

Soldiers, guards or interrogators at the U.S. bases at Bagram or Kandahar in Afghanistan had abused many of the detainees, and they arrived at Guantanamo enraged at America.

The Taliban and al Qaida leaders in the cells around them were ready to preach their firebrand interpretation of Islam and the need to wage jihad, Islamic holy war, against the West. Guantanamo became a school for jihad, complete with a council of elders who issued fatwas, binding religious instructions, to the other detainees...

- Militants recruited new detainees by offering to help them memorize the Quran and study Arabic. They conducted the lessons, infused with firebrand theology, between the mesh walls of cells, from the other side of a fence during exercise time or, in lower-security blocks, during group meetings.

- Taliban and al Qaida leaders appointed cellblock leaders. When there was a problem with the guards, such as allegations of Quran abuse or rough searches of detainees, these "local" leaders reported up their chains of command whether the men in their block had fought back with hunger strikes or by throwing cups of urine and feces at guards. The senior leaders then decided whether to call for large-scale hunger strikes or other protests.

- Al Qaida and Taliban leaders at Guantanamo issued rulings that governed detainees' behavior. Shaking hands with female guards was haram - forbidden - men should pray five times a day and talking with American soldiers should be kept to a minimum.

- The recruiting and organizing doesn't end at Guantanamo. After detainees are released, they're visited by militants who try to cement the relationships formed in prison.

"When I was released, Taliban officials told me to come join them, to fight," said Alif Khan , an Afghan former detainee. "They told me I should move to Waziristan," a Taliban hotbed in Pakistan.