How Lindh is now aiding US terror fight

John Walker Lindh, the young American who fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan last year, is to be sentenced Friday in a US District Court in Alexandria, Va.

Both the defense and prosecution have filed documents with the court indicating that Mr. Lindh is fulfilling a plea agreement reached on July 15. He agreed to submit to regular government debriefings, fully disclosing everything he knows about the Taliban and Al Qaeda, in return for a 20-year sentence.

The judge, T.S. Ellis III, is not bound by that agreement and could change the sentence. It will no doubt be a difficult decision that will require a delicate balance between punishing the only known American to have fought with the Taliban and encouraging him to continue to cooperate with the government in its effort to break up the Al Qaeda network.

The defense, prosecution, and outside experts on terror groups agree that Lindh is guilty of fighting with the Taliban, and that he should be punished. But they also agree that US government intelligence agencies, which have been unable to penetrate terror groups, have a unique opportunity to get an insider's views.

Although neither the government nor defense attorneys are permitted to speak about the substance of dozens of hours Lindh has spent in debriefings, terror experts say that he could provide invaluable information about training camps, organizational structure, and ideology – and could identify other terrorists.

"We have an American citizen who accomplished what others haven't," says Bruce Hoffman, a noted specialist on terror at the Rand Corp. "He was in there, where we would want our [CIA] operatives to be."

Rohan Gunaratna, an expert on terror at St. Andrews University in Scotland who has consulted with US intelligence agencies, agrees. "Americans are very good at targeting criminals, but not terrorists," Dr. Gunaratna says. "They must make an effort to understand the terrorist mind-set, and they have an opportunity to do that with Mr. Lindh, who is fully cooperating with them. He speaks good Arabic, he reads Arabic, he can help those agencies become more professional in the fight against terrorism."

Although all the parties agree that Lindh is cooperating and can continue to be extremely useful to the government in fighting terrorism, they all make the distinction between Lindh's involvement with the Taliban versus Al Qaeda.

Lindh converted to Islam five years ago, when he was 16, and left his upper-middle-class California home to attend an Islamic religious school in Yemen. He later attended another religious school in Pakistan, and ended up a year ago May at a recruiting camp in Kabul, Afghanistan.

The Taliban regime sent Lindh to the Al Farouq training camp near Kandahar, where he received military training before being sent to the front to fight the Northern Alliance last fall.

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