At least 11 al-Qaeda suspects have "disappeared" while in US custody, according to a report issued Tuesday by the monitoring group Human Rights Watch. The suspects, including Khalid Shaikh Muhammed, the alleged principal architect of September 11; Abu Zubayda, said to be a close aide of Osama bin Laden; and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who might have been one of the 9/11 hijackers apart form his failure to get a US visa, are all being held incommunicado at secret locations contrary to the terms of the Geneva Conventions, which require that the Red Cross have access to all detainees and that their relatives be informed of their whereabouts. HRW also says some suspects have reportedly been tortured. "Disappearances" have historically been associated with the detentions, abuse and killings of political prisoners in Latin America. Read the HRW report The United States’ ‘Disappeared’: The CIA’s Long-Term ‘Ghost Detainees.’