Unlawful combatant in the context of "US"

Combatant is the legal status of a person entitled to directly participate in hostilities during an armed conflict, and may be intentionally targeted by an adverse party for their participation in the armed conflict. Combatants are not afforded immunity from being directly targeted in situations of armed conflict and can be attacked regardless of the specific circumstances simply due to their status, so as to deprive their side of their support.

In an interstate conflict, the definition of "combatant" is found in Article 43 (2) of Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions: "Members of the armed forces of a Party to a conflict (other than medical personnel and chaplains covered by Article 33 of the Third [Geneva] Convention) are combatants, that is to say, they have the right to participate directly in hostilities." Combatants when captured by an opposing party are automatically granted the status of protected persons, whether as prisoners of war or unlawful combatants.

The Parwan Detention Facility (also called Detention Facility in Parwan or Bagram prison) is Afghanistan's main military prison. Situated next to the Bagram Air Base in the Parwan Province of Afghanistan, the prison was built by the U.S. during the George W. Bush administration. The Parwan Detention Facility, which housed foreign and local combatants, was maintained by the Afghan National Army.

Once known as the Bagram Collection Point, initially it was intended to be a temporary facility. Nevertheless, it was used longer and handled more detainees than the U.S. Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. As of June 2011, the Parwan detention facility held 1,700 prisoners; there had been 600 prisoners under the Bush administration. None of the prisoners received prisoner of war status.

Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Spanish: Base Naval de la Bahía de Guantánamo), officially known as Naval Station Guantanamo Bay or NSGB, (also called GTMO, pronounced Gitmo /ˈɡɪtmoʊ/ GIT-moh as jargon by the U.S. military) is a United States military base located on 45 square miles (117 km) of land and water on the shore of Guantánamo Bay at the southeastern end of Cuba. It has been "leased" from Cuba to the U.S., without expiry, since 1903 as a coaling station and naval base. It is the oldest overseas American naval base. Since 1974, the U.S. has paid the Cuban government an annual sum equivalent to $4,085 in 1934 dollars (approximately $96,018 in 2024) to lease the bay. The lease was previously $2,000 per year (paid in gold) until 1934, when it was set to match the value of gold in dollars.

Since taking power in 1959, the Cuban government has consistently protested against the U.S. presence on Cuban soil, arguing that the base was imposed on Cuba by force and is illegal under international law. The lease requires either bilateral consent or full U.S. military withdrawal in order to terminate lease. Since 2002, the naval base has maintained the Guantanamo Bay detention camp for alleged unlawful combatants captured in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other places during the war on terror. Cases of alleged torture of prisoners by the U.S. military and their denial of protection under the Geneva Conventions have been criticized. The base has been a focal point for debates over civil liberties, notably influenced by the landmark 2008 Supreme Court decision in Boumediene v. Bush. This ruling affirmed the constitutional right of detainees to challenge their detention via habeas corpus, highlighting the ongoing tensions between national security and civil liberties.

A private military company (PMC) or private military and security company (PMSC) is a private company that provides armed combat and/or security services. PMCs refer to their personnel as "security contractors" or "private military contractors".

The services and expertise offered by PMCs are typically similar to those of governmental security, military, or police but most often on a smaller scale. PMCs often provide services to train or supplement official armed forces in service of governments, but they can also be employed by private companies to provide bodyguards for key staff or protection of company premises, especially in hostile territories. However, contractors that use armed force in a war zone may be considered unlawful combatants in reference to a concept that is outlined in the Geneva Conventions and explicitly stated by the 2006 American Military Commissions Act.

Enemy combatant is a term for a person who, either lawfully or unlawfully, engages in hostilities for the other side in an armed conflict, used by the U.S. government and media during the war on terror. Usually enemy combatants are members of the armed forces of the state with which another state is at war. In the case of a civil war or an insurrection "state" may be replaced by the more general term "party to the conflict" (as described in the 1949 Geneva Conventions Article 3).

After the September 11 attacks, the term "enemy combatant" was used by the George W. Bush administration to include an alleged member of al-Qaeda or the Taliban being held in detention by the U.S. government. In this sense, "enemy combatant" actually refers to persons the United States regards as unlawful combatants, a category of persons who do not qualify for prisoner-of-war status under the Geneva Conventions. However, unlike unlawful combatants who qualify for some protections under the Fourth Geneva Convention, enemy combatants, under the Bush administration, were not covered by the Geneva Convention. Thus, the term "enemy combatant" has to be read in context to determine whether it means any combatant belonging to an enemy state or non-state actor, whether lawful or unlawful, or if it means an alleged member of al-Qaeda or of the Taliban being detained as an unlawful combatant by the United States.

Following the September 11 attacks of 2001 and subsequent war on terror, the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) established a "Detention and Interrogation Program" that included a network of clandestine extrajudicial detention centres, officially known as "black sites", to detain, interrogate, and often torture suspected enemy combatants, usually with the acquiescence, if not direct collaboration, of the host government.

CIA black sites systematically employed torture in the form of "enhanced interrogation techniques" of detainees, most of whom had been illegally abducted and forcibly transferred. Known locations included Afghanistan, Lithuania, Morocco, Poland, Romania, and Thailand. Black sites were part of a broader American-led global program that included facilities operated by foreign governments—most commonly Syria, Egypt, and Jordan—as well as the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which housed those deemed "illegal enemy combatants" under a presidential military order.