The enemy-combatant label expanded to cover any nearby Muslims.

Evidence

The US government described enemy combatants as members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, a distinction that was quickly extended to whatever Muslims were around, including non-combatants. The fate of an Afghan cab driver named Dilawar, who was arrested and tortured to death at Bagram Air Base in 2002, is documented in Alex Gibney’s film Taxi to the Dark Side (2007). — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 1366

Categorization

• XREF: Shows the categorical monster label applied beyond actual Al Qaeda — fear detached from any objective referent, echoing the reader’s projection thesis. — connects to: The terrorism label applies fluidly to domestic movements, expanding the war on terror’s targets. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 643
• SEED: The Dilawar case is an angle: how a cab driver with no link to terrorism died under a category created by the manufactured enemy image.