“Former Gitmo detainees help al-Qaida grow in Yemen

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – As a prisoner at Guantanamo, Said Ali al-Shihri said he wanted freedom so he could go home to Saudi Arabia and work at his family’s furniture store.

Instead, al-Shihri, who was released in 2007 under the Bush administration, is now deputy leader of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, a group that has claimed responsibility for the Christmas Day attempted bomb attack on a Detroit-bound airliner….”

This is one of the many guys that the Bush admin released who went straight to al-qaida. Am I the only one who thinks that civilian courts are for civilians living here? Does it make any sense to try soldiers captured halfway across the world with civilian rights and rules?

A released Guantanamo Bay terror detainee’s re-emergence as an al-Qaida commander in Yemen highlights the difficulty President Barack Obama faces in his efforts to close the detention facility and decide the fates of U.S. captives.

A U.S. counterterror official confirmed Friday that Said Ali al-Shihri, who was jailed at Guantanamo for six years after his capture in Pakistan, has resurfaced as a leader of a Yemeni branch of al-Qaida.

“By Allah, imprisonment only increased our persistence in our principles for which we went out, did jihad for, and were imprisoned for,” al-Shihri said in a video posted on a militant-leaning Web site Friday. It was the second time this week a reference to al-Shihri has shown up on the Web site. He was mentioned in an online magazine on Jan. 19 with a reference to his prisoner number at Guantanamo, 372.

Al-Shihri was released by the U.S. in 2007 to the Saudi government for rehabilitation. But this week a publication posted on the site said he is now the top deputy in “al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula,” a Yemeni offshoot of the terror group headed by Osama bin Laden. The group has been implicated in several attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Yemen’s capital Sana.

The second announcement from the site came the day after President Barack Obama signed an executive order directing the closure of the prison at the U.S. naval base in Cuba within a year.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090124/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/guantanamo_al_qaida;_ylt=AgLdBV6xM5_OfTzxG9bxo3OyFz4D

To the obot who claimed “no one is being released”:
rior to the new report, the recidivism rate among those who had been held at Guantánamo and released was 7 percent confirmed or suspected of “returning to the fight”—a total of 37 former prisoners. According to the new figures, that number has increased to 11 percent, or 61 total, with 18 confirmed and 43 suspected of involvement in terrorist activities.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/2009/01/13/some-freed-terrorism-detainees-return-to-the-fight.html

President Barack Obama bowed to political pressure from Democratic and Republican lawmakers not to send any more prisoners to Yemen as a result of revelations that a would-be bomber on a Detroit-bound plane had received al Qaeda training in Yemen.

Several of the roughly 91 Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay had been cleared to be sent home, as the Obama administration struggles to close the prison.
@h Heine: must not realize the US Constitution applies to US citizens ONLY… and Geneva Convention applies to prisoners of war ONLY, neither of which apply to TERRORISTS, duh!

While inmates of other nationalities have left Guantanamo in droves, roughly 90 Yemenis have been held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba for as long as seven years.

Steven Emerson, the executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism research group, said he would not be surprised if those former Guantanamo detainees were behind the airliner attack.

“Serving time in Gitmo has become a status thing for al-Qaida terrorists,” Emerson said. “Those that have served time have become appointed to top positions within the terrorist group once they make their way back to Yemen.”

A senior administration official said authorities still see closing the facility as a national security priority. While Obama has directed the U.S. to acquire a maximum-security prison in rural Illinois to hold as many as 100 Guantanamo detainees, he is counting on sending others back to their homelands or, in cases where that is impossible, to willing third-party countries.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091229/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_guantanamo_yemen

The announcement, made this week on a website commonly used by militants, came as President Barack Obama ordered the detention facility closed within a year. Many of the remaining detainees are from Yemen, which has long posed a vexing terrorism problem for the U.S.

The terror group’s Yemen branch — known as “al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” — said the man, identified as Said Ali al-Shihri, returned to his home in Saudi Arabia after his release from Guantanamo about a year ago and from there went to Yemen, which is Osama bin Laden’s ancestral home.http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-01-23-gitmo-friday_N.htm?csp=34

YOU SURE YOU WANT TO CLOSE DOWN GITMO AND GIVE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS TO TERRORISTS MR. PRESIDENT???
True thishappened in 2007 when Bush was president. And it serves as a PERFECT example of what will happen if Obama shuts Gitmo down and these prisoners are released. LEARN FROM BUSH’S MISTAKES why don’t you! And keep these animals at Gitmo where they belong AWAY from US soil!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,527868,00.html

yea yea…. fox news. I know you hate it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090123/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_yemen_al_qaida

And liberals didn’t foresee this kind of thing from happening? And now we are just going close up shop and let all of these terrorists go? These people were caught on the battlefield, fighting for Islamic fundamentalism against the “evil imperialist” USA, and then they spend years in prison at Gitmo, hardening their resolve and hatred toward the United States. What other outcome do you expect to happen?

You can make the case of how we go about detaining these people and what treatment they receive, but to close the prison out right is pure stupidity!
Johnny Wane, you’re not to bright if you think I was blaming anyone for this particular persons release….. That isn’t the issue. I know he was released under Bush, I’m saying that this kind of thing is going to happen 10 fold with the closing of Gitmo. Try reading the whole thing and establish the context and then come up with a relevant answer next time before sounding like an idiot.

The same Gitmo detainees who are fed three halal meals per day and are provided with a free prayer rug and Qur’an.
Folks, read the link – we LET ONE GO and he’s now the No. 2 man in Al Qaeda in Yemen.
Liberal Ass Kicker – - – - a SOCCER field????

They could play in CONCACAF!!!

A global search for accomplices in the Detroit airliner plot was under way yesterday after an al-Qaeda group based in Yemen claimed responsibility for the operation and the would-be bomber was reported to have said that more attacks were being planned.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6969645.ece

Could it be that Obama is so arrogant that he actually does not care and didn’t learn anything from the previously released “detainees” that went back to Yemen to lead the Muslim terrorist groups?