After October 2001: CIA Establishes ‘Salt Pit’ Secret Prison North of Kabul

Shortly after the US invasion of Afghanistan (see October 19, 2001), the CIA takes control of an abandoned brick factory, and turns it into a training facility and secret prison. The facility, code-named the “Salt Pit,” is a 10-acre facility just north of Kabul. It is used to train Afghan counterterrorism forces and to house prisoners. The agency intends the Salt Pit to be a “host-nation facility,” manned and operated entirely by Afghans, in part so that CIA officials cannot be held accountable for the actions taken by the Afghan guards and interrogators. Similar methodologies are used in secret CIA prisons in other countries. However, the CIA pays the entire cost of maintaining the facility. It vets the guards who work there, and decides which prisoners will be kept in the facility, including some senior al-Qaeda operatives who will eventually be transferred to other facilities such as Guantanamo. Sometime before March 2005, the CIA will transfer its operations to another facility, and the Salt Pit will be demolished. [ABC News, 11/18/2005]