The DC Circuit Decision in Khan and the Question of "Associated Forces"

Further to Ben's post on the new DC Circuit decision in Khan v. Obama, I want to draw attention to the brief discussion at the end of the opinion addressing the fact that Khan was said to be associated not with al Qaeda or the Taliban but with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e-Islami organization.  Worth noting: the panel expressed no doubt about the proposition that detention authority extends beyond al Qaeda and the Taliban to at least some "associated forces," focusing only on the question of whether the district court properly had found Hezb-e-Islami to be such a force.  That question wasn't (and shouldn't be) a close call, as Hezb-e-Islami is among the many groups that engage in attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan.