9

  The Sheikh, on a tour of the land, surprised the cops at a police station, finding not one officer present, only terrified green-uniforms. Officers, watanis all, wear sand-coloured uniforms, whereas the rest of the force, mostly Yemenis, Baluchis and deprived locals of lesser emirates, wears green. They arrived rapidly enough, the sand-coloured uniform guys, but the ire of their owner was great indeed. He swore foully, while maintaining his normal tone, sending them into paroxysms of terror, for whenever the Sheikh, our father and master, speaks thus, it is terrible news indeed; would that he had thrashed us here and now, without further ado, for then we would know the nature of our chastisement.

  Leaving the lot of corrupt and inefficient officers trembling in their den, the lord, driving at great speed and setting off every radar on his route, arrived at the main gate of Jebel Ali seaport - to be denied entry by Indian guards at its gate. The Sheikh’s perverse nature was mightily gratified, and, instead of shooting dead the doorkeepers on the spot, he drove away.

  He gate-crashed the government-owned aluminium company, barged through a branch of the municipality, tongue-lashed a labour inspector, belt-lashed an immigration official, and swept through yet another police station, fully staffed, before heading off to his camel complex in Nad Al Sheba, now made famous as the venue of annual World Cup horse races. A couple of years back, God had mugged him with a sudden and perfectly timed downpour to ruin his party, but he had fought back magnificently, using helicopters to blow-dry the course, and paying big money, in addition to attendance money he thought nobody knew of, to horse owners, to keep their racehorses in Dubai an extra week, badly miscalculating, as an outsider had won the race, rueing the loss of prize money he had intended to hand over to himself. It still rankled, and, as he headed there, he thought of his own relative poverty by the standards of regional oil sheikhs, and felt it keenly.

  He had not visited his camel complex lately, despite it lying adjacent to his horse stables, alongside the Nad Al Sheba racecourse - which he visited daily. While lesser locals took camel racing seriously enough, the Sheikh, now with sufficient wealth to indulge his obsession with racehorses, kept it going solely for bragging rights, to boast caretaker status of old traditions.

  Camel racing had led to the usage of smaller and smaller jockeys, until there was nothing smaller to be found that could actually ride the critters. At the advent of prosperity in the region, in the early 1970’s, Gulf Arab sheikhs began kidnapping children to tie onto camels, the shrieks of the tiny, terrified victims frightening camels into top gear. It was but natural that the Dubai ruler of the time would spot opportunity, and organise child trafficking into a commercial venture. And so Dubai, already the hub of every illicit undertaking, became the centre of slave trading, and slave runners from Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti, Mauritania, Yemen, Pakistan, Bangladesh and other poor countries came forward to provide a steady stream of extremely young children, some below four years of age. Other camel racing Arabs, on finding their camels could no longer compete, began buying children from Dubai.

  And a murderous business was born.

  Long lines of camels, draped in the colours of various stables, legs like millipedes, moved to and from training at race tracks, anxious little boys perched atop them, watched by swarthy older men, as minders, screws, owners and managers roared dustily about in four-wheel drives. As the Sheikh entered his own establishment, a line of camels headed out, the longest line of all, over two hundred strong.

  Obaid - renowned for utter heartlessness, impeccable accounting, unwavering honesty and unswerving loyalty to the Sheikh - the eldest son of his chief bodyguard, his trusted man in charge of both camel and slave businesses, came forward, stooping low as he walked, until he touched the Sheikh’s feet. “Hail, oh mighty Sheikh, most merciful, I live to serve you and none other, so indicate, and I shall do whatever you desire, lord and master.” A dozen other watani minor bosses also came forward to make obeisance, stooping to kiss master’s feet.

  The Sheikh nodded, grinning broadly as he strode into his slaving empire, the minor watanis following deferentially. “Obaid, what steps are you taking to improve quality?”

  “Lord, we have observed that drowning, electrocution, bloodletting and starvation combined works wonders on weight, a fifteen percent increase in mortality quite completely offset by enhancements in selling price and prize money.”

  “How much less weight?”

  “Two kilograms less on average, master, or well over ten percent of remaining body weight. We’re regularly hitting fifteen kilos, even from as high a start as thirty-five.”

  Obaid had received the Sheikh at the only entrance to the stockade, a drab, ramshackle and unremarkable pen, surrounded by similar pens, together numbering a few score. The Sheikh’s enclosure was the largest, about a mile square, enclosed by a rusting iron net fence covered with grass rushes for privacy, though, as it was off the beaten track, nobody other than the trade itself passed that way, which would not have mattered anyhow, as the entire racing thing was done in the open – ashen-faced, vilely abused, starving children loaded onto camels, long lines passing over public areas – which, too, was minor advertisement - against live telecasts of interminable boring races, jeeps, filled with exultant child abusers, rolling alongside racetracks, and little children, tied to loping camels’ backs, bouncing crazily and screaming insanely in terror.

  Within the main perimeter fence, huge stacks of hay and alfalfa lay about; derelict huts and shacks stood here and there, some in use, others in ruins, and rusting motor vehicles, carts and trolleys dotted the landscape. Internal improvised fencing, of canes, pipes, wires, sticks and rushes, confined over a thousand camels - stud camels, pregnant camels, nursing camels, baby camels, camels at different stages of growth, and racing camels - segregated by age and size. Grown slaves bowed and cried out praises as the Sheikh passed, nodding imperiously.

  “Master, most merciful,” said Obaid, “I wish to inform you that our new Bangladeshi supplier is Mujibur Ismail Falu.”

  “Who’s that? Isn’t our old friend Rahimur active?”

  “Sire, he was supplying Saudi direct.”

  “Direct? Direct? How dared he? What was your response?”

  “Lord and master, Rahimur is no more.”

  “Was it natural or did you fix it?”

  “I paid his dhow crew to drown him in the sea, on a return voyage from Dammam to Chittagong, which, by the grace of Almighty God, they were able to accomplish, more than a month ago, master.”

  “Good, good, Obaid, but perhaps you should have informed master earlier, don’t you think?”

  “Lord and master, I am ashamed to demand time, when master has such important work to do.” Obaid bowed.

  “Stand up, Obaid,” commanded the Sheikh. “You are absolutely right. What matters it, the end of a dog? My time is so tight, and I have so much to do, so much.”

  Obaid straightened up. “Also Abdirashid, the Somali, sire. He was assisting Kuwait to compete. I have contacted Saeed Omar, the Kismayu warlord’s permanent representative in Dubai, and agreed to pay fifty thousand US dollars on proof of Abdirashid’s death. I have demanded he bring Abdirashid’s body here, frozen, in a dhow, and promised to make him our new supplier from southern Somalia. He claims he can provide full dhow-loads, over five hundred toddlers.”

  “Idle boast, Obaid,” said the Sheikh, snorting derisively. “The most anyone ever did was that Pakistani, three or four years ago, and what was it, one hundred and forty-two boys? Our best bet for bulk supplies is still through our own airport in Pakistan.”

  The Pakistanis have allowed Gulf Arab sheikhs to set up private airports at a number of locations. The Saudis own one in Dalbandin, currently operated by the US military for its war against the Taliban, and UAE sheikhs have a private airport in Rahimyar Khan.

  The ostensible purpose is unobserved, secretive travel to hunt a diverse variety of endangered wildlife, mainly the houbara bustard. The real purposes are even more nefarious – slave smuggling, moving arms in to militant organisations, moving contraband out to the world, and providing international transportation services to a wide spectrum of global fugitives holed up in the wild areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

  In the centre of the camel area, a small, relatively new, iron fenced enclosure held slave children, almost fifty emaciated ones, chained at the leg to large metal rings in the ground, standing anxiously in corrugated-iron lean-tos. It was mealtime, and grown slaves were doling food out. One by one, the children were led, like animals, to an electronic weighing scale, to be perfunctorily examined by a man in a white coat. After weights were checked, measured, but incredibly tiny, amounts of food were placed on the chipped enamel platters they carried. As the visiting party watched, a little boy, denied food, began screaming. The doctor slapped him and motioned him away.

  “What was that?” roared the Sheikh. The attendants almost died of fright on seeing the Sheikh. The doctor practically passed away, and had to be revived with a glass of water splashed on his face and head. “Bring him here,” commanded the Sheikh, when the man had sufficiently recovered. The doctor, who had to be helped to his feet, stumbled in terror as he came forward. He was a Syrian vet, deputed as child specialist, a promotion of sorts. The Arab Gulf is full of this kind of perverseness, the worst examples being the reverse, demotion - employment of university graduates and school teachers, as housemaids in utterly illiterate households.

  “I should cut your hand off,” said the Sheikh. The vet fell onto his knees and stooped to kiss the Sheikh’s feet, not letting off until the Sheikh irritably moved away. The man chased him on all fours, but the Sheikh demonstrated nimbleness of foot to scamper out of reach. Obaid, meanwhile, acquired himself a cleaver, just in case. “Enough of that. You do not deserve to kiss my feet. Do you not know that these boys are to be treated as my children? Obaid, most disappointing. Have I not instilled in you the basic elements of mercy? Have I not taught you that all are equal in the sight of God? Have I not explained, or perhaps you have not understood, that cruelty is unbecoming? They are innocent children. Whipping or hanging them by their hands for laziness is one thing, but slapping and hurting little boys through temper is not right. How is it that such things happen here?”

  “Lord and master, king, I have striven hard to instil finer qualities into myself, as you have directed, and am surprised to see unwarranted infliction of pain, by people under my command. It shames me that master’s commandment, to hold mercy, kindness and charity as our guiding principles, has so clearly been disobeyed. You observed, lord, that our entry had passed unnoticed, else such wanton cruelty would never have been witnessed by us.”

  “And why place iron helmets on boys kept in shade?” raged the Sheikh, indicating a group of six helmeted little figures, chained at the leg, lying unmoving on the sand to one side. “Why waste the opportunity to make blood run properly from their noses? If there is to be no blood loss, let them do some work.”

  “Master,” pleaded the good Obaid, “the workers have been very slack of late, ever since the Abu Dhabi sheikhs distributed money here. Most merciful one, tonight I shall conduct such a round of whipping and other most terrible chastisements, that their screams will be heard in hell itself.” He bawled out an order, and grown slaves rushed to drag the unconscious children into the sun.

  “Punish the man,” ordered the Sheikh, indicating the vet, who was still looking hopeful of getting attached to his feet.

  Obaid grabbed the offender and hauled him to a wooden bench. He laid the vet’s arm on the bench and took aim with the cleaver, measuring his stroke, as the Syrian wailed in terror.

  “What the hell are you doing, Obaid?” asked the Sheikh.

  “Cutting off the offending hand, sire.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Obaid. How will he work with only one hand? He’s Syrian. Cut his salary. That will hurt him more than the loss of a hand.”

  Obaid dropped the cleaver. “That boy is one of our best, sire, a real screamer. The other day, I roped him atop Lady Ayesha to test him. I swear he made the old hag run faster than when she was a young lass.”

  “Lady Ayesha? Is she still alive?”

  “Indeed, she is, master, not too well, but alive.”

  “Put her down, Obaid, useless animals cost money. Lady Ayesha’s days of winning trophies are long gone, ah, what a runner she was in her time, the queen of Arabia, seventy-nine wins on the trot, ah, a record never to be broken, uncountable prize money earned, ah, ah, what a beauty, what a runner! Use her meat to feed slaves, but do not neglect to send some to a mosque, for the poor. Always remember your duty to God.”

  Obaid bowed humbly and gave the order, sending two workers running to immediately murder the drowsy old she-camel.

  The Sheikh nodded his approval, as weighing and food distribution continued. “What is the diet these days?”

  “Plain rice, my lord,” answered the grieving Syrian vet, bowing low. “Starch removed; almost no calories. They lose weight very fast, sire. Next month, they shall live by bread alone - half a dry kubbus; the small one, master.”

  “And that boy?”

  “Sire, he is listed for racing tomorrow, the King’s Cup, which, by the grace of God, we hope to win. The new policy states, totally empty stomachs for two days before racing.” They watched as the last boy was dealt with.

  “These four will be racing next week,” said the vet, indicating a group of boys who had also been denied food. “Under the new weight loss program, we feed selected jockeys only every other day, and conduct electrocution and drowning at mealtimes, highness, to be sure that all get treatment under my supervision. With permission of my lord...”

  The Sheikh nodded permission, and the four screaming children were dragged to a water trough, where grown slaves held their heads under water, so that the children gasped for breath. When brought up for air, the slaves would wait until a boy began screaming, indicating he had got his breath back, before shoving his head under water again. “After half an hour of drowning therapy, lord, electrical shocks will be administered. I have moved the electrocution station into this enclosure, so that that, too, is done under my personal supervision.” The vet looked hopefully at the Sheikh. “Highness, my salary; I work so hard...”

  “Inshallah, Inshallah; win some prizes and I shall see, Inshallah, regarding the salary cut,” said the Sheikh. “What voltage do you use nowadays?”

  “Sire, we have found that 220 volts, straight from the mains, works best, after experimenting with lower and higher voltages. Lower does not appreciably reduce weight, and higher kills.”

  “Show me,” commanded the Sheikh.

  A worker got hold of a toddler and took the screaming child over to the electrocution station. Attaching wires to the boy’s feet, he began administering electrical shocks, while the child danced about and screamed. Finally, the toddler fell, but electrocution therapy continued, the child’s unconscious body convulsing violently, as power surges coursed through his wasted frame.

  The Sheikh nodded his approval. “Careful, careful you don’t kill him; costs money, you know.” He turned away and noticed a few crippled toddlers eating in a corrugated-iron lean-to. “Obaid, feeding rugbys is like giving water to a dying man,” said he irritably, using the derogatory watani term for children severely injured in races, when they instinctively curl up into what watanis think resemble rugby balls. “Waste and loss through wanton stupidity; why did you not bury them beside the racetrack? When are they going?”

  “Lord, I have concluded a deal with a new buyer, and that is why the delay in getting rid of this lot. Those rugbys have been sold for transfer to India, where they will be placed as beggars in big cities. He has paid a deposit, and will lift the cargo soon. Our new selling price is more than double what Bangladeshis were paying.”

  “Good, good,” said the Sheikh.

  “Master, most merciful, I have begun training our boys properly, and am not now depending solely on lightness and screaming power.”

  “And how is that, Obaid?”

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Master, I have given racing boys duties that keep them busy eighteen to twenty hours daily, commencing well before dawn, including cleaning the stockade, feeding and grooming personal camels, and going on at least three training runs, morning, noon and evening.”

  “Can they manage so much? These are very small children.”

  “Most merciful one, at sight of chain and whip, all tiredness vanishes.”

  Suddenly an older man, scant of hair and red of beard, stumbled up to the Sheikh and fell at his feet, wailing loudly. “Forgive me, forgive me my king, spare me, mercy, mercy...”

  The bemused Sheikh turned to Obaid. “What the hell has Younis Khan done?”

  “Well, master, he seems to have woken up,” answered Obaid, looking grim. "But he will now get double.” He kicked the old slave in the face. “Not attending to your duties also, eh?”

  “Also?” queried the Sheikh.

  “Master, he was scheduled for one flogging, which has changed to two for the helmet offence.”

  “Why the first one?”

  “This morning, master, when inspecting a secluded part of the stockade, I chanced upon him pleasuring himself with a new arrival, who is at almost forty kilos, and has been put on the strictest weight control program. Why, I asked the cur, why don’t you enjoy his bum, which is still so well rounded? Oh, I’ll take his bum after he has serviced me with his mouth a while, said the dog. I saw no reason to doubt, and went about my duties. Then, when checking a hut, I heard him moaning most foully, like when the extreme crisis is upon a man, so I looked out at the very moment that he shot his sap load straight into the boy’s mouth. His prolonged writhing and loud grunting made me realise that the boy was extracting a huge sap load, and I sprinted to pull the child’s mouth off his member. Alas, master, the boy had swallowed every last drop!”

  The Sheikh’s face turned purple in rage. “So when?”

  Obaid called out, and two grinning brutes strode forward. They were mutes, born slaves, extremely strong, and though the Sheikh’s father had had their tongues removed, to prevent them communicating his secret smuggling plans, they were perversely loyal. “Tie Younis Khan to the post, and hand me a good whip,” commanded Obaid.

  The children began shrieking and wailing fearfully, at sight of whips being uncoiled, running in circles on their chains, like headless chickens on wobbly legs.

  Younis Khan, spitting blood, beside himself in fear, shrieked, “Mercy, mercy, most merciful one, I lost control, mercy, mercy, never again, most merciful one, never again, mercy, mercy...”

  But there was to be no mercy, and Obaid tucked up his dishdash and whipped the old man, so that the blood ran down his legs onto the sand.

  “When does master desire he be given his second dose?” asked Obaid, panting with his exertions.

  “That should be enough, Obaid,” said the Sheikh, looking hard at his creature. “You seem to have not understood the basics of mercy yet. Younis Khan is an elderly man, a faithful servant of my father, and perhaps he is no longer able to exercise the controls he could when young. Mercy, Obaid, is difficult to understand, so keep studying all aspects of it.”

  Obaid, mortified, hung his head. “Master, your servant is ashamed.”

  “That is okay, Obaid. You are but low born, and not expected to learn, except through guidance. But tell me, is there no way to altogether stop this thing?”

  “Master’s word is my command, but these men are untrustworthy beasts, who will use children as they please and then murder them to ensure silence. We cannot do without grown men either, to supervise and train camels and riders.”

  “True enough, Obaid,” said the Sheikh. “But make sure jockeys do not swallow sap.”

  “Master, it’s so difficult. Racing boys suck best, as you know, because they want to swallow sap for nourishment. But now they won’t get it, master, at least for a while. The men will be careful to either release sap in rectums, or spend themselves, in prescribed manner, on the sand.”

  “Good, good,” said the Sheikh.

  “Master, will you be attending the races tomorrow morning?”

  “Absolutely. Ruling sheikhs of all emirates intend to attend, and also very important sheikhs from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait. I hope you have winners here.”

  “Master, Saudi royals have sent almost a hundred top camels, and dozens of extremely light boys. I suspect they have weight control programmes almost as good as ours, but it is not known to them that we have begun training our boys. Master, I can only hope and pray to Almighty God to make our camels faster and our boys lighter...”

  It was carnival at the races next morning, at Dubai’s main camel racetrack, opposite Nad Al Sheba club.

  Hundreds of outside camels, along with handlers and emaciated slave child riders, had been brought and kept in the camel pens of Nad Al Sheba, with continual movement across the main Nad Al Sheba road, car drivers having to halt, by law, to let camel trains cross.

  Camel racetracks are ten kilometres long, almost circular, and wide enough to accommodate over a dozen camels running side by side. A track parallel to every racetrack allows vehicles, including vehicles mounted with television cameras for live broadcast on free-to-air channels, to drive along, so that owners and handlers are able to scream instructions and terrible threats to jockeys – on walkie-talkies strapped to their chests!

  Television broadcast is all-important to truly enjoy camel races, even when attending, as, in the main stadium, nothing but start and finish can be viewed - about three minutes in all!

  The races continued through the morning, winners receiving handsome prizes, ranging from luxury cars for minor races to million-dollar prizes for the majors – which only sheikhs, owning the very best and most expensive runners, ever won.

  The great lords sat in a separate section, with tarts, mistresses and underage female sex slaves, the last the envy of those who had not, and alcohol flowed like water, as they cried out greetings and exchanged light hearted banter.

  “Sheikh Abdullah, your riders are too fat, ha, ha!”

  “Too fat? Ha, ha, sheikh Majed, we’ve tricked you all into putting overfed brats on your camels. Our child has an airbag around him. Let the race begin, and The Lady of Riyadh will fly like the wind, ha, ha.”

  “Airbag, sheikh Abdullah? That’s cheating, ha, ha!”

  “Sheikh Majed, I’m a man of respect, ha, ha, and I have the rule book here, ha, ha, and there’s no prohibition in it, ha, ha!”

  “Inshallah, Allah will punish you by making a rugby of your child, ha, ha!”

  “But we’re using double velcro, ha, ha!”

  And so the races continued, the vilest sport ever devised, and the ugliest and most inhuman crime ever committed, prizes being distributed while pick-up trucks trailing races became filled with dead and horrifically injured children, none being treated or in any way relieved of the intense agony of horrendous injuries.

  “Ha, ha, sheikh Mohammed, Kuwait Girlie has lost her mount. Disqualified, ha, ha!”

  “No, no, sheikh Khalifa, the child is dangling below her, ha, ha. She is still in the race, ha, ha!”

  “Is that so? But eight kilometres are yet to go, sheikh Mohammed, ha, ha. Inshallah he will come loose and be trampled before she comes in, ha, ha!”

  “By the grace of God Almighty all will be well, ha, ha, and my guardian angels will ensure he dies after winning, ha, ha!”

  And so it went on, this interminable sadistic sport, the air rent with shrieks of excitement, as incense wafted on air-conditioned breezes.

  “Sheikh Mana, ha, ha, your jockey’s head has been crushed between your camel’s legs, see the blood spraying, ha, ha. I win our wager, ha, ha.”

  “Three of my camels still run, ha, ha, and your child is dangling perilously close to the track, sheikh Sultan. Look, look, he’s begun hitting the ground, ha, ha.”

  “Ha, ha, sheikh Sultan, looks like sheikh Mana wins your wager, ha, ha.”

  “It must be some sin sheikh Sultan has committed, ha, ha, for which God is penalising him, ha, ha.”

  “Sheikh Mana, I’m building a mosque, ha, ha, and in Ramadan I gave to charity, as always. It cannot be sin, ha, ha.”

  And so it went on, with no respite for the tormented children, except through the blessed intervention of death.

  “Sheikh, ah Sheikh, today your people have many graves to dig, ha, ha!”

  “No, no, sheikh Sultan, no digging, ha, ha! In Dubai we’re always ahead, don’t you know, keeping many small holes ready, ha, ha, planning forward, sheikh, planning’s the key, I’ve been attending Tom Peters’ lectures, ha, ha...”

  Higgs said he believes abuses also happen in Dubai, which human rights activists say is the center of the child slave trade.

  An alarming number of children we encountered on the racetracks were as young as five years old.

  There are reliable reports of widespread physical and sexual abuse of the children, beatings and systematic food deprivation to reduce weight and growth. The abuse is so widespread in the Gulf region, involving as many as 40,000 children, that it may currently be one of the world’s worst instances of organized child abuse – child cruelty on an industrial scale.

  The Rahimyar Khan District is famous because of its proximity to the Cholistan desert, where climatic conditions are similar to the UAE and Gulf States. The desert is well known for hunting, and Arab sheikhs and kings come each year for this reason. But they have taken the liberty of expanding their choice of game to young nomadic children of this area, either kidnapping or buying them from their poverty- stricken parents or guardians, to be used in camel racing.

  When the airport was built at Rahimyar Khan by the rulers of UAE, they began to land their personal planes and this made it easy for the local people to send their children to UAE as camel jockeys. With this trend setting in, some local people became the ‘agents’ of the sheikhs in the UAE. They started purchasing children from poor families, with the lure of a good job in UAE and monetary benefits. Soon this menace spread to the adjoining districts of Rahimyar Khan such as Bahawalpur and Multan districts in the Punjab and the Tharparkar district of Sindh Province

  US MILITARY 9/11 COMMISSION

  The Desert Camp, February 1999

  During the winter of 1998-99, intelligence reported that Bin Ladin frequently visited a camp in the desert adjacent to a larger hunting camp in Helmand province of Afghanistan, used by visitors from a Gulf state. Public sources have stated that these visitors were from the United Arab Emirates. At the beginning of February, Bin Ladin was reportedly located there, and apparently remained for more than a week. This was not in an urban area, so the risk of collateral damage was minimal. Intelligence provided a detailed description of the camps. National technical intelligence confirmed the description of the larger camp and showed the nearby presence of an official aircraft of the UAE. The CIA received reports that Bin Ladin regularly went from his adjacent camp to the larger camp where he visited with Emiratis. The location of this larger camp was confirmed by February 9, but the location of Bin Ladin’s quarters could not be pinned down so precisely. Preparations were made for a possible strike at least against the larger camp, perhaps to target Bin Ladin during one of his visits. No strike was launched.

  According to CIA officials, policymakers were concerned about the danger that a strike might kill an Emirati prince or other senior officials who might be with Bin Ladin or close by. The lead CIA official in the field felt the intelligence reporting in this case was very reliable; the UBL unit chief at the time agrees. The field official believes today that this was a lost opportunity to kill Bin Ladin before 9/11.

  Clarke told us the strike was called off because the intelligence was dubious, and it seemed to him as if the CIA was presenting an option to attack America’s best counterterrorism ally in the Gulf. Documentary evidence at the time shows that on February 10 Clarke detailed to Deputy National Security Adviser Donald Kerrick the intelligence placing UBL in the camp, informed him that DOD might be in position to fire the next morning, and added that General Shelton was looking at other options that might be ready the following week.

  Clarke had just returned from a visit to the UAE, working on counterterrorism cooperation and following up on a May 1998 UAE agreement to buy F-16 aircraft from the United States. On February 10, Clarke reported that a top UAE official had vehemently denied that high-level UAE officials were in Afghanistan. Evidence subsequently confirmed that high-level UAE officials had been hunting there.

  By February 12 Bin Ladin had apparently moved on and the immediate strike plans became moot. In March the entire camp complex was hurriedly disassembled. We are still examining several aspects of this episode.

  French report claims terrorist leader stayed in Dubai hospital

  Higgs, the independent British photojournalist, visited the UAE this year between May and August. The main camel racing season had ended, but there were still "loads and loads of very young boys at Nad Al Sheba," the Dubai camel track, Higgs said. Higgs captured some of the boys on video for HBO's Real Sports despite a ban on photography at the track.

  He said in an interview that because of the inherent dangers he was able to see inside only one camel camp near Nad Al Sheba - a camp surrounded by barbed wire and that looked more like a prison camp than a training center, he said. But in Dubai he found boys at the track, boys being hurried off camels and into pick-up trucks to head back for more mounts.

  These children, some as young as 4 years old, are forced to work up to 18 hours a day in the scorching heat of the deserts.

  The child who cannot stay awake for the 18 hours of gruelling work is given a “karba” (electric shock), while those who decide to disobey orders or play games are beaten and tortured. Stories of cruelty inflicted on many of the children rescued by Ansar Burney Trust involved them being tied up in chains in the desert heat, beaten with metal rods and leather whips, cut with blades and being raped by their “owners”.

  http://www.ansarburney.org/human_trafficking-children-jockeys.html

  Some are fed only three biscuits a day with water, while others are given dirty and unhygienic food – worse than what is fed to the camels. If that does not bring their weight down, they are forced to wear metal helmets to make them bleed and reduce weight that way.

  http://www.ansarburney.org/human_trafficking-children-jockeys.html

  The children said that the bedus and sheikhs have developed very novel ways of keeping the weight of the camel jockeys down. When a child jockey gets ‘over-weighed’ he is provided very limited food every second day. If this does not work, the child is given electric shocks 15-20 times a day until his weight comes down to ‘desired’ level. The electric shocks are normally given on the hands and legs of the child. Yet another brutal method is to hold the child's head under water in the water tank 15-20 times daily. No food is given to the child during the period he is subjected to the cruel treatment for weight-loss.

  “We were given electric shocks by the masool and bedu 15 to 20 times daily by tying electric wires on our ankles and hands and two persons firmly holding our hands and feet so that we could not move. Similarly our heads were held under water at intervals 20 to 30 times daily. While going through this process no food was given to us. We were given only half bread every second day. This inhuman treatment was aimed at reducing our weight from between 32 and 38 kg to 15 and 17 kg ”

  Ranging between 4 and 10 years of age, these child-slaves are so tiny that they cannot hold onto the camel. Consequently they have Velcro patches sewn into their pants, so they stick to the camel saddle. Nevertheless, they sometimes fall off, to be trampled underfoot by the camel herd, hell-bent for the finish line and multi-million dollar prizes. Hence, these children are dubbed “Rugbys” by the Arabs, because when they are being kicked, stomped, and killed by the camels, they instinctively curl up like little Rugby balls.

  Speaking haltingly in his native Urdu, Shakheel described the wretchedness of life in an ousbah, a simple desert settlement where the boys live as prisoners with the camels and their trainers.

  “They used to wake us at two or three in the morning. If we didn’t get up or they thought we were lazy they would beat us with sticks,” he said. “We had to clean up the camel dung with our hands.”

  The boys were given brackish water and fed little more than bread or biscuits to keep their weight down. Any considered to have become too heavy would have weights tied to their backs and be made to run under the desert sun.

  Serial offenders would be hung by their wrists from chains. Many claim that they were sexually abused by the trainers.

  Race days were the worst. As the camels thundered around the track at up to 40mph, riders were often knocked to the ground and trampled underfoot.

  Another boy, Zulfiqar, 10, said he had seen several riders break their arms or necks or die from their injuries. When the choice is between tending a thoroughbred camel worth hundreds of thousands of pounds or a boy bought for a few thousand, the animals get priority. “They always look after the camels first,” he said.

  One child mentioned that he witnessed a child being sexually abused by a masool at an azba. Mr. AP, a camel trainer or mudhamer, mentioned that sexual abuse of children is very common and according to his estimates at least 10 percent of the total children are sexually abused. Yet another camel trainer Mr. RAB mentioned that children are sexually abused in almost 75 per cent of the azbas in the UAE.

  Instead of enforcing existing legislation, the UAE authorities have banned photography at the racetracks to prevent the continued practice and scale of this child abuse being documented.

  Photography is forbidden at Nad al Sheba. Despite CCTV and local television coverage, no ‘outsider’ photography is allowed. Even at tracks where there are no obvious signs, plain clothes and uniformed police enforce this rule with ruthless efficiency, confiscating film, cameras and tapes if need be. Anyone defying the ban risks arrest.

  Many deaths of camel jockeys go unreported but the Pakistan Embassy in Abu Dhabi was able to confirm that it was not uncommon to receive reports of casualties. To confirm this I was shown the passport of 5-year-old. Dilshad (left), recently killed on the main race track in Abu Dhabi. He is survived by his brother, (pictured right). I was informed that ‘If a child dies, nobody cares. They give 5,000 or 6,000 dirhams to the agent and that’s it. If there are few camels, 20-25 in a race, no child may die. But if there are 40-50 camels together, they run into each other and hit each other and children fall and die under the camel. It’s not a problem if the child gets hurt. But the camel should not have a scratch.’ Daoud Khan