For the young men, the mosques became their home, providing accommodation, food and a sense of community. For the extremist clerics who ran the mosques, however, the stream of young men coming through their doors were ripe for recruitment. The Guantánamo files disclose how they were allegedly brainwashed with videos of atrocities committed against Muslims in Bosnia and Chechnya, and subjected to lectures by Hamza and Qatada which highlighted the virtues of the “pure Islamic state” to be found in Afghanistan.