John Walker Lindh
John Phillip Walker Lindh (born February 9, 1981) is an American citizen who was captured as an enemy combatant during the United States' 2001 invasion of Afghanistan in November 2001. He was captured and detained at Qala-i-Jangi fortress, used as a prison. He took part in the Battle of Qala-i-Jangi, a violent uprising of the Taliban prisoners, during which the CIA officer Johnny "Mike" Spann was killed, together with all but 86 of the estimated 300–500 prisoners. Brought to trial in United States federal court in February 2002, Lindh accepted a plea bargain; he pleaded guilty to two charges and was sentenced to 20 years in prison without parole. A convert to Islam in California at age 16, Lindh went to Yemen in 1998 to study Arabic for 10 months. He later returned in 2000, then went to Afghanistan to aid the fighters. He received training at Al-Farouq, a training camp associated with al-Qaeda, designated a terrorist organization by the United States and other countries. There, he attended a lecture by Osama bin Laden. After the 9/11 attacks, he continued to stay and fight after he learned that the U.S. was allied with the Afghan Northern Alliance. Lindh had previously received training with Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, an internationally designated terrorist organization based in Pakistan. Lindh went by the name Sulayman al-Faris during his time in Afghanistan, but prefers the name Abu Sulayman al-Irlandi today. In early reports following his capture, when the press learned that he was a U.S. citizen, he was usually referred to by the news media as just "John Walker".