FAQ

The director said in interviews http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfoQKGOaOEY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y6rLnBAq1g that he didn't want to make it clear and that, from his perspective, it didn't matter. It could have been any of the places these 'black sites' operated including Poland, Lithuania or Romania (though, given the climate, Poland or Lithuana seem more likely and Poland even more given the spoken fragments of Polish and the fact that that is were the director is from and were much of it was filmed). Similarly, he said that the beginning could be Afghanistan, the Pakistani border, Northern Iraq or somewhere else. This ambiguity includes the character: he could be Taliban (though that's never said or even indicated), a militant of unknown origins (including the possibility of being a Westerner like John Walker Lindh) or just a local.