Another Terrible Biden Legacy — Releasing More Gitmo Prisoners Who Will Terrorize the World; Biden Admin Releases 11 Yemeni Detainees With Suspected al Qaeda Ties From Guantanamo Bay — Including Two Alleged Former Bin Laden Bodyguards
Another terrible Biden legacy — releasing more Gitmo prisoners who will terrorize the world:
Twenty-three years after the 9/11 attacks on NYC, new US intelligence documents reveal 234 “rehabbed” former Gitmo detainees have returned to terrorism and killing Americans — an alarming 32% recidivism rate. Most of them have not been recaptured and are still at large.
Nonetheless, lame-duck President Biden is quietly freeing more of these high-risk terrorist suspects from the Guantanamo Bay prison, all to fulfill his old boss Barack Obama’s pledge to permanently close the facility in Cuba.
Shortly after taking office, Biden reversed President Trump’s executive order to keep Gitmo open and is lining up more inmates to transfer out of the prison with the goal of emptying it and shuttering it — even though the remaining prisoners have long been classified by military intelligence as the worst of the worst and too dangerous to release.
Earlier this month, the outgoing president freed 11 Yemeni prisoners — all of them al-Qaeda terrorists, including two of Osama bin Laden’s bodyguards — leaving the number of remaining detainees at 15. He sent them to Oman, where we are told they’ll be monitored, rehabilitated and go on to live peaceful lives.
However, some of Oman’s counterterrorism programs “were postponed or canceled” after the COVID-19 pandemic, and “Oman’s iniatives to counter violent extremism remained opaque in 2023,” according to the State Department’s latest country report. It also stated that Oman has “limited resources” and needs to “improve its CT (counterterrorism) capabilities.”
What’s more, Oman’s remote, uncontrolled borders with Saudi Arabia and Yemen present additional “obstacles for counterterrorism,” the report warned.
One of the bin Laden bodyguards released by Biden — Sana Ali Yislam al-Kazimi — was a “facilitator for the Yemen-based al-Qaida branch,” according to a declassified military dossier, and could slip back into his old role across the border.
Just six months ago, Oman abandoned 28 other Gitmo terrorists it promised to reform under an agreement with Obama. Oman stripped them of citizenship and shipped them across the border to Yemen, a known terrorist redoubt.
Perhaps it needed to make room for Biden’s 11 new parolees, who include unrepentant al-Qaida operative Hani Saleh Rashid Abdullah, who’s tied to 9/11 planners and lusted for watching footage of the attacks while incarcerated and required “robust security assurances” from Oman.
Or more likely, officials in Muscat viewed them as an internal terror threat and wanted to get rid of them rather than “reintegrate” them into their society.
“Anyone who thinks they’ll be rehabbed simply doesn’t want to look at past incidents of detainees returning to the fight,” said ret. Army Lt. Col. Brian F. Sullivan, a former FAA special agent who specialized in counterterrorism. —>READ MORE HERE
Biden admin releases 11 Yemeni detainees with suspected al Qaeda ties from Guantanamo Bay — including two alleged former bin Laden bodyguards>
The Pentagon announced Monday that it has released 11 Yemeni detainees with suspected ties to al Qaeda from the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba.
The detainees, none of whom have been charged with a crime, will be resettled in Oman as the Biden administration moves to wind down operations at the notorious detention facility.
“Although different processes, each of the Yemeni detainees underwent a thorough, interagency review by career professionals who unanimously determined all detainees as transfer eligible consistent with the national security interests of the United States,” the Department of Defense said in a statement.
The Pentagon noted that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin notified Congress in 2023 of his intent to repatriate the 11 Yemeni detainees to Oman.
“The United States appreciates the willingness of the Government of Oman and other partners to support ongoing U.S. efforts focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing the Guantanamo Bay facility,” the DoD said.
Moath Hamza Ahmed al-Alwi, an alleged al Qaeda fighter and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, was one of the 11 men released.
An unclassified 2016 US intelligence file on al-Alwi warns that as a GITMO detainee, he “has made several statements since early 2016 that suggest he maintains an extremist mindset.”
The file also notes that al-Alwi has committed a number of disciplinary infractions while in detention that were “pardoned” as part of an “incentive for detainees to improve their conduct.”
Suhayl Abdul Anam al Sharabi, another alleged bin Laden bodyguard, was also released.
Al Sharabi’s 2020 intelligence file notes that he “may have been associated with an aborted 9/11-style hijacking plot in Southwest Asia” as a member of al Qaeda. —>READ MORE HERE