Shortly after leaving home to look for work in December 2002, Agha was detained by Afghan soldiers in
Girishk for attempting to join the
Taliban to fight against Americans, a charge he denied. At the time, he would have been aged between 13 and 14 years old.
[b] He was then transferred to the
United States at
Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. During this time, he says he was held in solitary confinement and subjected to
sleep deprivation and
stress position, both
enhanced interrogation techniques used at the time by the
U.S. Armed Forces. He was then transferred on February 7, 2003, to
Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba.
[c] He was put with two other teenagers,
Naqibullah and
Asadullah, in
Camp Iguana, the section of Guantanamo built for juveniles. Unlike other detainees, those in Camp Iguana were not shackled and hooded, and did not wear orange boiler suits. They were given classes in
Pashto (their native language),
English,
Arabic,
Islam,
mathematics,
science, and
art. While there, they learned to read and write. Their camp had a recreation yard, where the boys played
football every day with their guards, and sometimes basketball and
volleyball. Agha and his family said that he was treated well by the American troops and attended school during his incarceration at
Guantanamo, although he criticized the US for not contacting his parents for 10 months, and failing to let them know that he was still alive during that time. He was transported to Bagram along with the other two juvenile detainees and released on January 29, 2004; a
Red Cross plane took him from there to
Kandahar. ==Subsequent recapture==