and British embassies in Kabul, Afghanistan." Hicks was sent to learn guerrilla techniques for the Pakistani LeT for use in disputed Kashmir. Hicks denies any involvement with al-Qaeda, and that he knew the camp had any al-Qaeda links. According to Hicks, he did not know of the existence of al-Qaeda until he was taken to Cuba and was interrogated by US military personnel. On one occasion when al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden visited an Afghan camp, the US Defense Department alleges Hicks questioned bin Laden about the lack of English in training material and subsequently "began to translate the training camp materials from Arabic to English". Hicks denies this and denies having had the necessary language proficiency, a claim supported by Major Michael Mori and fellow detainee Moazzam Begg. The latter said that Hicks could not speak enough Arabic to be understood. Hicks wrote home that he had met Osama bin Laden 20 times. He later, however, told investigators he had exaggerated, that he had seen bin Laden about eight times and spoken to him only once. There are a lot of Muslims who want to meet Osama Bin Laden but after being a Muslim for 16 months I get to meet him. Prosecutors also allege Hicks was interviewed by Mohammed Atef, an al-Qaeda military commander, about his background and "the travel habits of Australians". In a memoir that was later repudiated by its author, the Guantanamo detainee Feroz Abbasi claimed Hicks was "Al-Qaedah's 24 [carat] Golden Boy" and "obviously the favourite recruit" of their al-Qaeda trainers during exercises at the al-Farouq camp near Kandahar. The memoir made a number of claims, including that Hicks was teamed in the training camp with Filipino recruits from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and that, during internment in Camp X-Ray, Hicks allegedly described his desire to "go back to Australia and rob and kill Jews ... crash a plane into a building" and to "go out with that last big adrenaline rush." September 2001 On 9 September 2001, Hicks travelled from Afghanistan to Pakistan to visit a friend. A US Department of Defense statement claimed that "viewing TV news coverage in Pakistan of the 11 September 2001 attacks against the United States" led Hicks to return to Afghanistan to "rejoin his al-Qaeda associates to fight against U.S., British, Canadian, Australian, Afghan, and other coalition forces." Hicks denies this claim in his book. Although