. >> reporter: ahmad tourson and his friends are part of an ethnic muslim group from xinxang known as uighurs. thousands of uighurs have fled that country. >> they were fleeing persecution in various forms in china. >> reporter: dixon is a lawyer representing several of the uighurs in palau. >> they would walk across the border into courakyrgyzstan andd hear about these uighurs. >> reporter: it was all before 9/11? >> before 9/11. >> reporter: once in afghanistan, some of the uighurs lived in areas that were under control of the taliban. and then in october of 2011 when the u.s. invaded that country in retaliation for 9/11, u.s. ground forces captured thousands of taliban and al qaeda fighters in the very area where the uighurs lived. several dozen uighurs were also taken into custody, held as suspected terrorists. the u.s. government later claimed some had been undergoing military training. >> the men were picked up in the fog of war. they were rounded up and sold to the united states for money, for bounties, for $5,000 apiece. >> reporter: was it appropriate to capture them? and i t