The Dasht-i-Leili massacre occurred in December 2001 during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan when 250 to 2,000 Taliban prisoners were shot and/or suffocated to death in metal shipping containers while being transferred by Junbish-i Milli soldiers under the supervision of forces loyal to General Rashid Dostum from Kunduz to Sheberghan prison in Afghanistan. The site of the graves is believed to be in the Dasht-e Leili desert just west of Sheberghan, in the Jowzjan Province.
Alberto Salazar is an American former track coach and long-distance runner. Born in Cuba, Salazar immigrated to the United States as a child with his family, living in Connecticut and then in Wayland, Massachusetts, where Salazar competed in track and field in high school. Salazar won the New York City Marathon three times in the early 1980s, and won the 1982 Boston Marathon in a race known as the "Duel in the Sun". He set American track records for 5,000 m and 10,000 m in 1982. Salazar was later the head coach of the Nike Oregon Project. He won the IAAF Coaching Achievement Award in 2013.
Mary Teresa Slaney is an American retired middle-distance and long-distance runner. During her career, she won gold medals in the 1500 meters and 3000 meters at the 1983 World Championships and was the world-record holder in the mile, 5000 meters and 10,000 meters. In total, she set 17 official and unofficial world records, and she was the first woman to break 4:20 for the mile. She also set 36 U.S. national records at distances ranging from 800 meters to 10,000 meters, and has held the U.S. record in the 2000 meters and 3000 meters since the early 1980s, while her 1500 meters record stood for 32 years and her mile record stood for 38 years. In 2003, she was inducted into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame.
Bernard Kipchirchir Lagat is a Kenyan-American former middle and long-distance runner.
Derrick Ralph Adkins is a former American track and field athlete who specialized in the 400-meter hurdles. He was an Olympic gold medalist in that event at the 1996 Summer Olympics and World Champion at the 1995 World Championships in Athletics. He was the fastest man in the world in the 1994 and 1996 seasons, and holds a personal record of 47.54 seconds. Adkins was a two-time national champion at the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships.
Suzy Favor Hamilton is an American former middle-distance runner and escort. She competed in the 1992, 1996, and 2000 Summer Olympics.
Louis Silvie Zamperini was an American World War II veteran, an Olympic distance runner and a Christian Evangelist. He took up running in high school and qualified for the United States in the 5,000 m race for the 1936 Berlin Olympics, finishing 8th while setting a new lap record in the process.
Mullah Mohammad Fazl is a member of the Taliban militant group and the First Deputy Defense Minister of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, having assumed the role on 7 September 2021. He also served in the position during the previous Taliban government (1996–2001).
Khairullah Said Wali Khairkhwa is a member of the militant Taliban organization currently in control of Afghanistan, who has previously been called one of the "moderate" Taliban. He is the Taliban Minister of Information and Culture and a former Minister of the Interior. After the fall of the Taliban government in 2001, he was held at the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camp in Cuba for 12 years. He was released in late May 2014 in a prisoner exchange that involved Bowe Bergdahl and the Taliban five. Press reports have referred to him as "Mullah" and "Maulavi", two different honorifics for referring to senior Muslim clerics.
Ha'il Aziz Ahmad Al Maythal is a citizen of Yemen, who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camp, in Cuba. American intelligence analysts estimate that he was born in 1977, in Zemar, Yemen.
Semiannually, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) publishes an unclassified "Summary of the Reengagement of Detainees Formerly Held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba". According to ODNI's most recent Reengagement Report, since 2009, when current rules and processes governing transfer of detainees out of Guantanamo were put in place, ODNI assess that 5.1% of detainees – 10 men total, 2 of whom are deceased – are more likely than not to have reengaged in terrorist activities.
Abdul Latif Nasir is a Moroccan man formerly held in administrative detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 244. Joint Task Force Guantanamo counter-terrorism analysts report he was born on March 4, 1965, in Casablanca, Morocco. Abdul Latif Nasir and Sufyian Barhoumi tried to file emergency requests to be transferred from Guantanamo in the final days of Barack Obama's presidency.
Lopez Lomong is a South Sudanese-born American track and field athlete. Lomong, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, came to the United States at the age of 16 and became a U.S. citizen in 2007.
Robert Cheseret is a Kenyan-born American long-distance runner. He is the younger brother of Bernard Lagat and older brother to Violah and Everlyne Lagat. Cheseret won the 2011 NACAC Cross Country Championships.
Beaudry Robert "Bowe" Bergdahl is a former United States Army soldier who was held captive from 2009 to 2014 by the Taliban-aligned Haqqani network in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Mokgadi Caster Semenya OIB is a South African middle-distance runner and winner of two Olympic gold medals and three World Championships in the women's 800 metres. She first won gold at the World Championships in 2009 and went on to win at the 2016 Olympics and the 2017 World Championships, where she also won a bronze medal in the 1500 metres. After the doping disqualification of Mariya Savinova, she was also awarded gold medals for the 2011 World Championships and the 2012 Olympics.
Craig Alford Masback is a retired American middle-distance runner who specialized in the mile and 1500 meters, recording 30 sub-four-minute miles, including a best of 3:52.02, winning the U.S. Indoor Championships at the mile distance in 1980, establishing an American record at 2000 meters in 1982, and representing the United States 10 times in international competition between 1976 and 1985.
Lauren Fleshman is an American runner, coach, author, and retired professional track and field athlete. She was the U.S. 5000 meters champion in 2006 and 2010, and competed at the IAAF World Championships in Athletics in 2003, 2005, and 2011. In the 5000 meter final of the 2011 IAAF World Championships she finished in 7th place, equalling what was at the time the highest ever finish by an American woman in that event.
Daniel "Dan" Huling is an American distance runner who specializes in the 3000-meter steeplechase. He holds a personal record of 8:13.29 minutes for the event, set in 2010. He has represented the United States at the World Championships in Athletics four times.
Molly Seidel is an American long distance runner. Seidel represented the United States at the Great Edinburgh Cross Country in 2012, 2013, and 2018. In her first-ever marathon, Seidel placed second at the 2020 U.S. Marathon Olympic Trials. Later, she went on to win the bronze medal in her third career marathon at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. At the University of Notre Dame, Seidel was a 4-time NCAA champion, 6-time NCAA All-American, 6-time Atlantic Coast Conference champion and 2016 female ACC Athlete of the Year.
