Jonathan Keith "Jack" Idema (May 30, 1956 – January 21, 2012) was a former U.S. Army reserve special operations non-commissioned officer with a controversial history. In September 2004 he was found guilty of running a private prison in Afghanistan and torturing Afghan citizens. At the time, Idema had been portraying himself as a U.S. government-sponsored special forces operative on a mission to apprehend terrorists. However, the U.S. government has repeatedly denied most of such claims.[4].......
....... Illegal entry into Afghanistan was one of the charges leveled against Idema and two other Americans accompanying him – former soldier Brent Bennett and television journalist Edward Caraballo. That charge was eventually dropped.[citation needed]
Idema first traveled to Afghanistan in November 2001 to conduct what he said was "humanitarian relief" work.[35] It was at this time that he involved himself in the research Robin Moore was conducting for his book The Hunt for Bin Laden. He was actually working for National Geographic with Gary Scurka.
According to Gary Scurka, a reporter for CBS News, Idema contacted him a few weeks after the September 11 terror attacks and announced he was going to Afghanistan to do humanitarian-aid work, saying he was to work with Knightsbridge International and the Partners International Foundation, two aid groups run by former military personnel.[7] This led to Scurka and Idema presenting a film documentary project for National Geographic.[36]
Idema, Gary Scurka, and Greg Long traveled to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where they were arrested for visa problems and held in a cell overnight.
The three were freed after their captors received a letter from the US embassy in Uzbekistan, written by an officer in the US Defense Attache's Office, describing Idema and Scurka as "contracting officers from the Defense Department who arrived to the Republic of Uzbekistan for an official trip." The letter, which was verified as authentic by the director of the Department of State's press office, was dated November 2, 2001, and asks Uzbekistan's ministry of foreign affairs for help in issuing visas to Idema, Gary Scurka, and Greg Long.[37] .......
....... Idema led a group he called "Task Force Saber 7" consisting of two other Americans and several Afghans. The group may have been operating in Afghanistan with independent financial backing or with funds from two lawsuit settlements Idema had won a few years earlier, one of which was for $1.8 million.[33][32] He frequently interacted with reporters, often going to great lengths in his interviews to stress connections with the CIA and Special Forces. Some supporters suggest that he was a former member of an unspecified covert operations unit, reactivated and positioned in Afghanistan to hunt for Osama Bin Laden under operation Alec Station. Relationship to the Northern Alliance was denied by their official representative in the United States. ......
...... Idema was known to have a volatile temper that seemed to be particularly directed against news correspondents assigned to Kabul. On several occasions, Idema threatened journalists with bodily harm or death, and in one particular instance, at a dinner in December 2001 he threatened to kill a reporter from Stars and Stripes because the reporter had disclosed Idema's fraud conviction.[42]
It has been recorded that Idema did frequently contact the Defense Department through the front office of General William G. Boykin in the Pentagon, and that his information was duly acknowledged. However, all of those contacts were outside the US Military operating channels, and were all one-sided calls from Afghanistan via his Idemas personal Satellite Phone. Boykins office repeatedly asked Idema to stop making these unsolicited phone calls, because they were disruptive; time consuming; and Boykin could not be of assistance. Idema continued calling Boykins office to establish some sort of self-serving relationship, until his arrest. While the US government was aware of Idema's activities in Afghanistan, they stated there was unequivocally no relationship between them.
The United States Central Command stated that Coalition forces received one detainee from Idema on May 3, 2004. Idema claimed that the individual was associated with the Taliban. Once in US custody, however, the detainee was determined not to be who Idema claimed, and was released in the first week of July.[43]
The United States was not the only government that had contact with Idema in Afghanistan; On three occasions, Idema tricked the Canadian led NATO mission into providing explosives experts and bomb sniffing dogs.[44] According to a spokesman for the ISAF, Idema called for and received technical support after his vigilante team raided compounds on June 20, 22, and 24 of 2004. ISAF personnel believed they were "providing legitimate support to a legitimate security agency."[44]
Idema also received assistance from Yunus Qanooni; former minister, senior Afghan government security advisor, and influential member of the Northern Alliance.[45] In one video tape presented at Idema's trial, Yunus Qanooni thanked Idema for uncovering an assassination plot against him. In the same tape Qanooni volunteered his personal security troops to help Idema with arrests.[46] Another tape appeared to show Qanooni's forces assisting Idema in a house raid.[45] .......
....... He tried further to prove his official status when he claimed to be working for the US Counter Terrorism group, the same group that some sources say he founded.[50] He claimed his group had prevented assassination attempts on Education Minister Yunus Qanooni and Defense Minister Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim. He also claimed the FBI interrogated several militants captured by his group and that after his arrest, the FBI removed from his premises hundreds of videos, photos and documents. Some of the pieces were later returned to Idema and his defense team. One of the videotapes shows Afghanistan's former education minister Yunus Qanooni thanking Idema for the arrest of two people, and offering his full cooperation in future raids......
....... In December 2001, Edward Artis, director of Knightsbridge, wrote to U.S. Army Special Operations Command warning them of Idema's activities, stating:
[Idema] is a very dangerous person by virtue of his carelessness and stupidity, and before he gets someone killed... he needs to be removed from the area. I feel that given the amount of time that he has been allowed to run around telling people he has been working for the U.S. Embassy, Pentagon, Special Ops under cover or the CIA, that he has garnered or bought enough contacts to pose a real threat to not only me and those near me but the over all mission of the United States and the Coalition that is fighting there.[9]
Idema later filed suit against Artis and Knightsbridge but the case was dismissed and a monetary judgement was in turn placed against him. .......
.......Idema was not without his supporters, usually found among blogs sympathetic to his situation. The contributors to these blogs believe that he is being unjustly punished for actions condoned, if not officially sanctioned, by the U.S. military. However, there has been little support for Idema's claims in general media outlets. Indeed, many members of the media who encountered Idema while they were on assignment in Afghanistan regard him as a fraud.[20][65]