Thursday, May 28, 2009

Ex-Gitmo detainees returning to terrorism











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Dear Solstice,

As we reported to you last week, the Guantanamo enemy combatant issue has
really heated up in Congress. The article below provides just one of the
many reasons why.

If you have not already signed our petition
opposing the release of Guantanamo terrorists into the United States,
there’s still time to do so by
clicking here.








Pentagon: Ex-Gitmo
detainees turning to terrorism on rise
From Mike Mount
CNN Pentagon Producer

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/05/26/gitmo.recidivism/index.html


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Mohammed Ismail was released from the
U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in early 2004 and sent
back to Afghanistan to be set free.

Within four months, the U.S.
military said, he was recaptured in Afghanistan attacking U.S. troops
there, with paperwork on him that said he was a Taliban in good standing.


Another is Abdullah
Gulam Rasoul, who was released from Guantanamo in December 2007 and set
free in Afghanistan. Rasoul has become a powerful Taliban military
commander in southern Afghanistan, the military said, and the United
States suspects he is responsible for several attacks on U.S. forces
there.

A senior U.S. military official said he believes Rasoul is
using his former
Guantanamo
experience to build on his "rock star status" among the Taliban.


Abd al Hadi Abdallah Ibrahim al Shaikh of Saudi Arabia, who was
released in 2007, was arrested in 2008 by Saudi authorities on suspicion
of supporting terrorism inside that country, the military said.

On
Tuesday, the Pentagon released information that showed 14 percent of
former detainees have turned to, or are suspected of having turned to,
terrorism activity since being released from Guantanamo. The data
represent the most recent statistics of former detainees tracked by
military and other U.S. government intelligence agencies.

The
report shows that of the more than 530 detainees released from the prison,
27 have been confirmed to have engaged in terrorist activities and 47 are
suspected of participating in some kind of terrorist act.

The
statistics indicate that there has been a slight increase since the end of
2008, and the number of released detainees turning to or suspected of
turning to the insurgency is almost doubled from the 7 percent in that
category a few years ago, according to
Pentagon officials
familiar with the information.

The report said that between
December 2008 and March 2009, nine former detainees were added to the
confirmed list, six of whom were moved over from the suspected list.


The Pentagon's definition for "suspected" is significant reporting
indicating a person is involved in terrorist activities and an analysis
showing a match to an identity of a former detainee.

The report
defines "confirmed" as a preponderance of evidence, including
fingerprints, DNA, photo match or reliable or well-corroborated
intelligence that can identify a former detainee at Guantanamo.

In
January, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said 62 former Guantanamo
detainees may have gone on to participate in terrorism or military
activity. That number included 18 who had been directly tied to an attack
or attacks and 43 who were suspected of such action, Pentagon officials
said at the time.

"What's clear is we are not seeing recidivism on
the decline," according to a defense official who declined to be named
because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan
Whitman declined to say what officials think is the reason for the numbers
having gone up, but said the United States does monitor as best as it can
detainees who have been released from Guantanamo.

The Pentagon
released the names of almost 30 former detainees confirmed or suspected to
have gone on to fight, with examples of what these men had done after
their release.

Abdullah Saleh Ali al-Ajmi, for example, was
released in 2005 to Kuwait. In April 2008 he blew himself up in Mosul,
Iraq, killing a number of Iraqis, the Pentagon said.

Yousef
Muhammed Yaaqoub was released from Guantanamo and sent back to Afghanistan
to be freed in 2003. The Pentagon documents show that he rejoined the
Taliban as a commander in southern Afghanistan, and planned a jailbreak in
Kandahar and a "nearly successful capture of the town of Spin Boldak,
Afghanistan."

Yaaqoub was killed fighting U.S. troops on May 7,
2004, according to the Pentagon data, and his memorial service in Pakistan
drew a number of wanted Taliban leaders.

Other examples released
by the Pentagon show men sent home to Morocco who were later captured and
accused of recruiting people to train with and fight for al Qaeda in Iraq,
two men freed in Saudi Arabia who became leaders in a new al Qaeda
organization there, and a Russian sent home who later was arrested for
playing a role in a gas line bombing.

As a comparison, among
prisoners in the United States, about 62 percent of violent offenders
examined in a 1994 study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics were
rearrested within three years of being released.




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