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Facing domestic political pressures, the Bush and Obama administrations released or transferred 600 terror suspects deemed an acceptable threat from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, only to face the challenge that 27 percent re-engaged in terrorist or insurgent activities, according to a report by Republicans on a House Armed Services subcommittee. The report, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, provides the GOP perspective on an issue that has divided Washington since the start of the Afghanistan war and the use of the Navy prison for those captured. And it split the White House and...

The Obama administration is considering the controversial release of several senior Taliban figures from Guantanamo Bay. Diplomatic sources say they would probably be relocated to Qatar in the Persian Gulf, where the Taliban is negotiating the establishment of a liaison office to facilitate dialogue with the U.S. James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence told the Senate Intelligence Committee this week that such transfers, though controversial, are not new when trying to end combat. "In almost every case where we've had hostilities, that at some point in time, there are negotiations. I don't think anyone in the administration harbors any illusions...

Note: The following text is a quote: IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 917-09 November 20, 2009 DOD Announces Military Commissions Actions Today, prosecutors in the Office of Military Commissions announced they intend to ask the convening authority to refer new charges under the recently-enacted Military Commissions Act of 2009 against Abd al-Rahim Hussein Muhammed Abdu al-Nashiri, in connection with the bombing of the USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen, in October 2000. The bombing resulted in the deaths of 17 sailors and injuries to many more. This announcement follows the attorney general's determination on Nov. 13, 2009, that a military...

The United States has reportedly released three high-ranking Taliban leaders from Guantanamo Bay Prison in return for an American soldier held by the militant group. The move is also considered as a big concession by Washington to persuade the Taliban to the negotiating table. The three senior Taliban leaders are reportedly on their way to Qatar despite strong opposition from Afghanistan. According to media reports, the released prisoners include Mullah Khair Khowa, a former interior minister, Noorullah Noori, a former governor in northern Afghanistan and maybe Mullah Fazl Akhund, a Taliban Army Chief of Staff. Kabul says the prisoners must...

The US has agreed in principle to release high-ranking Taliban officials from Guantánamo Bay in return for the Afghan insurgents' agreement to open a political office for peace negotiations in Qatar, the Guardian has learned. According to sources familiar with the talks in the US and in Afghanistan, the handful of Taliban figures will include Mullah Khair Khowa, a former interior minister, and Noorullah Noori, a former governor in northern Afghanistan. More controversially, the Taliban are demanding the release of the former army commander Mullah Fazl Akhund. Washington is reported to be considering formally handing him over to the custody...

Washington - US and Taliban negotiators reached a tentative deal last month to transfer five Afghans from Guantanamo to Qatar, the Washington Post said on Friday, but it was rejected by President Hamid Karzai. The accord would have called for five inmates from the US-run detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to be placed under house arrest in Qatar while the Taliban would have issued a public renunciation of international terrorism in a de facto break with al-Qaeda, the Post reported, citing unnamed US and European officials. "Right now, things have stopped," a senior US administration official is quoted as...

*snip* As part of the accelerating, high-stakes diplomacy, Reuters has learned, the United States is considering the transfer of an unspecified number of Taliban prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay military prison into Afghan government custody. It has asked representatives of the Taliban to match that confidence-building measure with some of their own. Those could include a denunciation of international terrorism and a public willingness to enter formal political talks with the government headed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The officials acknowledged that the Afghanistan diplomacy, which has reached a delicate stage in recent weeks, remains a long shot. Among the...

In a newly disclosed file by WikiLeaks that was written in 2005, Abu Sufian Ibrahim Ahmed Hamuda Bin Qumu was identified as a “probable member of Al Qaida and a member of the African Extremist Network”. The revelation will raise concerns about the range of factions fighting Gadaffi in Libya, some of whom have been associated with Al Qaeda. Qumu was previously a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, but allegedly left the proscribed group in 1998 to join the Taliban. In the report, US investigators classified Qumu as a “medium to high” risk because he was “likely to...

Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, Cuba -- November 9, 2011 Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri was escorted into a top security courtroom at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station Wednesday morning by an army of military officers. Clean shaven and with short-cropped hair, the al-Qaeda terrorist charged with orchestrating the 2000 attack on the Navy destroyer USS Cole chose to wear his white prison jump suit to the arraignment of his military tribunal. In fact, he told the judge through his Arabic interpreter that he “intended to show up” in his “prison uniform” though he knew of his right to wear civilian clothes. Al-Nashiri...

The Obama administration’s handpicked choice to run prosecutions at the Guantánamo war crimes court is pledging a new era of transparency from the remote base, complete with near simultaneous transmissions of the proceedings to victims and reporters on U.S. soil… Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins denounced military commissions system, which Barack Obama scorned as a candidate and senator then reformed with Congress as president. Gen Martins, Army lawyer starts the job of Chief Prosecutor for Military Commissions on Oct. 3, according to a Pentagon spokesman. The the war court where he prosecutes will “feature new measures to ensure transparency, including...

Look, I understand the the Obama White House has decided to shift to the extreme Left on policy this month. They want to pander to their base, which has been demoralized in discovering that their agenda has as much chance of passing Congress as … well, as Obama’s tax-hikes bill. But at some point, the pander will devolve into self-parody — and Eric Holder’s promise to really, really close the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay qualifies as the tipping point: U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that the Obama administration will do its utmost to close the U.S....

NEW YORK — The U.S. military tribunal that oversaw Omar Khadr’s war crimes case has refused his bid for clemency, issuing a statement Thursday that simply confirms the eight-year sentence he received in a plea deal. Under it, Khadr pleaded guilty last October to five war crimes, among them the murder of a U.S. serviceman during a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan, when the Toronto native was 15. He received a sentence of eight years, with one more to be served in Guantanamo, and seven in a Canadian prison. The Toronto native had, through his military lawyer, sought to have the...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – The U.S. military says an Afghan detained at the Guantanamo prison in Cuba has died in an apparent suicide. U.S. Southern Command spokesman Bob Appin says the 37-year-old prisoner was not breathing when guards found him Wednesday. Appin says the guards tried without success to resuscitate him.

Sunni Islamist lawmakers exchanged blows with a Shi'ite parliamentarian who labelled Kuwaitis detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as terrorists, lawmakers said. Shi'ite pro-government lawmaker Hussein al-Qallaf made the remarks during a discussion about the fate of Kuwaitis held at the U.S. military facility, enraging Salafist opposition lawmakers who adhere to a strict interpretation of Islam. The Salafist lawmakers attacked him, sparking a brawl when other parliamentarians rushed to defend Qallaf, lawmakers said. The fight appeared to play out along sectarian lines in a parliament that has seen some tensions emerge between Sunni and Shi'ite lawmakers after Kuwait sent naval forces...

Files obtained by the whistleblowing website Wikileaks have revealed that the US believed many of those held at Guantanamo Bay were innocent or only low-level operatives. The files, published in US and European newspapers, are assessments of all 780 people ever held at the facility. They show that about 220 were classed as dangerous terrorists, but 150 were innocent Afghans and Pakistanis. The Pentagon said the files' release could damage anti-terrorism efforts. The latest have been published in the Guardian, New York Times and other newspapers. It was not clear whether the papers had co-operated with Wikileaks in their release....

Alam Shah, a 24-year-old Afghan had lost a leg, got prosthetic from Gitmo doctors... Years pass. Military analysts conclude: “Detainee does not pose a future threat to the U.S. or U.S. interests.” So in 2004 Mr. Shah is sent back to Afghanistan. He promptly reveals himself to be Abdullah Mehsud… Executes an attack on Pakistan’s interior minister that kills 31 folks, then oversees the kidnapping of two Chinese engineers, Shah's self detonation interrupts further activity...

Thousands of pages of previously secret military documents about detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison now put a name, a history and a face on hundreds of men in captivity there. The documents include details on 158 men on whom no information has ever been released. The hundreds of classified documents - marked "secret" and "noforn" meaning the information is not to be shared with representatives of other countries - are assessments, interviews and internal memos from the Pentagon's Joint Task Force at Guantanamo. The task force was supposed to determine who the detainees were, how they might be connected...

WASHINGTON — Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. is poised to announce that the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and four other suspects will face justice before a U.S. military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay rather than a civilian court in New York. The decision, to be announced Monday at the Department of Justice in Washington, marks a major reversal both for President Obama and Holder, especially since the president initially promised to shut down the prison at the U.S. Naval Base on Guantanamo Bay – where Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and the others will now be tried. Holder has...

U.S. lawmakers keep quiet about Guantanamo tourBy Lesley Clark | The Miami Herald Posted on Wednesday, March 9, 2011 Rep. Allen West toured the secretive Camp 7 at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba — where the alleged Sept. 11 plotters are held — but wouldn’t say Tuesday what he saw. “There’s nothing more I can say other than the fact I saw Camp 7,” the Broward Republican told reporters on a conference call, hours after he and a bipartisan delegation of House Armed Services Committee members returned from a daylong tour of the offshore detention camp. “It looks like a Camp 7.”...

President Obama quietly signed an executive order on Monday instituting a system for indefinitely holding terrorist detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo), Cuba. The administration also announced that terrorist trials by military commission would recommence. This is a win for U.S. security, but the country has paid a heavy price for Mr. Obama’s on-the-job training in counterterrorism. The low-key announcements stand in marked contrast with the bombast with which Mr. Obama approached this issue just a few years ago. During the 2008 presidential campaign, then-Sen. Barack Obama harshly criticized President George W. Bush’s detainee policies. When...

President Obama quietly signed an executive order on Monday instituting a system for indefinitely holding terrorist detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo), Cuba. The administration also announced that terrorist trials by military commission would recommence. This is a win for U.S. security, but the country has paid a heavy price for Mr. Obama’s on-the-job training in counterterrorism. The low-key announcements stand in marked contrast with the bombast with which Mr. Obama approached this issue just a few years ago. During the 2008 presidential campaign, then-Sen. Barack Obama harshly criticized President George W. Bush’s detainee policies. When...

“Hope” and “change” may have been the twin messages of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, but the pledge that best embodied the central theme was his promise to shutter the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba within one year of taking office. For the American and international left, Gitmo was the most powerful symbol of everything that was wrong with the Bush presidency and the U.S. war on terrorism. They maintained it was an evil place, where innocent bystanders who had been caught up in America’s imperialist aggression in the Middle East could be held indefinitely, incarcerated without cause...

Washington (CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama has ended a two-year ban on military trials for terrorism suspects at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, signing an executive order Monday, reversing a policy put in place shortly after he took office. “From the beginning of my Administration, the United States has worked to bring terrorists to justice consistent with our commitment to protect the American people and uphold our values,” Obama said in a statement Monday. “Today, I am announcing several steps that broaden our ability to bring terrorists to justice, provide oversight for our actions, and ensure the humane treatment of...

President Obama announced Monday that military trials will resume for detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, saying the tribunals are an "important tool in combating international terrorists."

Complete title: Judicial Watch Obtains Bush Defense Department Documents Detailing Terrorist Threat Posed by Guantanamo Detainees “There is substantial risk that detainees at Guantanamo, upon release, would set out to kill Americans or other innocent civilians around the world.” White House Spokesman Jay Carney on February 17, 2011: “The president remains committed to closing Guantanamo.” Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it received documents from the Department of Defense (DOD) detailing the policies of the Bush administration related to the detention of “enemy combatants” at Guantanamo Bay, as well as the...

Al-Qaeda has set up an Islamic emirate in Derna, in eastern Libya, headed by a former U.S. prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, the country's deputy foreign minister told EU ambassadors in Tripoli. However, residents in the city have told reporters there is no substance to these rumors, which they claim the Libyan government is sowing to "scare Europe." "Al-Qaeda has established an emirate in Derna led by Abdelkarim al-Hasadi, a former Guantanamo detainee," Khaled Khaim said. "They have an FM radio station and have begun to impose the burqa" (head-to-toe covering for women) and have "executed people who refuse to cooperate...

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) – A U.S. military jury debated the sentence on Friday for an admitted al Qaeda conspirator from Sudan who promised to help in the prosecution of other prisoners in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals. Prisoner Noor Uthman Muhammed pleaded guilty on Tuesday to conspiring with al Qaeda and providing material support for terrorism. The jury at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base began deliberating his sentence on Friday. The nine members of the military jury can send him to prison for 10 to 14 years in addition to the nine he has already...

Today's AP story on the Gate on the Berkeley vote not to pass a resolution to resettle Gitmo detainees reports: The resolution singled out two Guantanamo detainees who have been cleared of wrongdoing but don't want to return to their home countries because they fear persecution -- Ravil Mingazov, a Russian ballet dancer, and Djamel Ameziane, an Algerian chef. That is just plain wrong. As I wrote Sunday, these detainees have not been cleared. On another note, the Center for Constitutional Rights has put together profiles on Guantanamo detainees, including this one for possible Berkeley-transplant, Djamel Ameziane. Languages: French, Arabic,...

U.S. peace activist Cindy Sheehan (L) hugs Zohra Zewahi, mother of the Guantanamo detainee Omar Deghayes, during a news conference in Havana January 9, 2007. Sheehan and other activists are in Cuba and plan to march to the gates of the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo, Cuba on January 11, to demand the closure of the base. Read the details about Omar Deghayes and his family at Sweetness & Light...

Berkeley, Calif., home to the hippie movement of the 1960s, is considering rolling out the welcome mat to freed Guantanamo Bay detainees. The City Council is poised to vote Tuesday night on a resolution that would invite "one or two" detainees to live in Berkeley once they are cleared of wrongdoing and released from the U.S. detention facility in Cuba. It would also ask Congress to allow cleared Guantanamo detainees to resettle in the U.S. The city reportedly has its sights set on a Russian ballet dancer and an Algerian who was a top-rated Italian chef in Austria. They would...

The Berkeley City Council was set to consider a resolution Tuesday night that would offer refuge to released Guantanamo Bay detainees. Cynthia Papermaster, a Berkeley resident who heads Berkeley No More Guantanamos, first proposed the resolution to the Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission late last year. "The U.S. government-under President Bush and President Obama-- cleared the majority of Guantanamo prisoners for release, but many cannot safely return to their home countries because of the risk of persecution, torture or death,” she said. “Berkeley is a compassionate and caring community, like Amherst and Leverett, Massachusetts, which passed similar resolutions in 2009...

On Tuesday, on the recommendation of its Peace and Justice Commission, the Berkeley City Council is set to vote on a resolution to invite "one or two cleared" Guantanamo Bay detainees to resettle in Berkeley. Peace and Justice Commissioner Rita Maran told me that the idea was to invite to Berkeley "the kind of people you'd like to have living next door to you or dating your cousin." While the resolution doesn't name the one or two detainees, her panel presented material that cites two - Russian-born Ravil Mingazov and Algerian-born Djamel Ameziane - whom it claims have been "cleared."...

Guantanamo Bay detainees might have a new home in the United States: Berkeley. The City Council is to vote Feb. 15 on a resolution to invite detainees who have been cleared of wrongdoing to resettle within Berkeley's sunny confines. Of the 38 detainees who have been cleared, Berkeley would invite two: a Russian ballet dancer and an Algerian who was a top-rated Italian chef in Austria. "Our hearts are with all those people who were never tried, held for years and in some cases tortured," said Wendy Kenin, chairwoman of the city's Peace and Justice Commission, which crafted the resolution....

The extradition hearing for WikiLeak's founder Julian Assange is set to begin Monday in London, with his lawyers prepared to make arguments he could eventually end up in Guantanamo Bay if first extradited to Sweden. Assange, of Australia, is wanted for questioning by Swedish prosecutors for incidents with two women in August and faces possible charges of rape, unlawful coercion and sexual molestation. He maintains the encounters were consensual. After Swedish authorities requested that a European Arrest Warrant be issued, Assange turned himself in to U.K. police on Dec. 7. After a week in custody, he was granted bail on...

Former US President George W. Bush cancelled a trip to Geneva over the risk of legal action against him for the alleged torture of suspected militants at Guantanamo Bay, rights groups said Saturday. He was scheduled to address a Jewish charity gala.

MIAMI -- Joint Task Force-Guantanamo announced today that a detainee died of apparent natural causes late Tuesday evening. The detainee is identified as Awal Gul, a 48-year-old Afghan. He arrived at Guantanamo in October 2002. Gul was housed in Camp 6, which provides communal living areas for up to 20 detainees. He collapsed in the shower after exercising on an elliptical machine. Other detainees in his cell block then assisted Gul to the guard station for medical attention. The guards immediately alerted medical personnel, who upon arriving at the cell block found him unresponsive. He was immediately transported to the...

The Obama administration plans to move ahead with a new round of military tribunals in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, underscoring the president's difficulty in meeting his goal to close the U.S. prison there. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected soon to approve military court charges against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the accused plotter of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, and four others, U.S. officials said Thursday. Attorney General Eric Holder in November 2009 announced that the five would be tried in military courts at the same time he announced civilian criminal trials in New York City for Khalid...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama on Friday signed a bill effectively barring suspects held at the Guantanamo Bay prison from being brought to the United States for criminal trial, a move that will make it hard to quickly close the jail. "Despite my strong objection to these provisions, which my administration has consistently opposed, I have signed this act because of the importance of authorizing appropriations for, among other things, our military activities in 2011," Obama said in a statement.

MOSCOW (AP) - A Muslim cleric formerly held at Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba said Tuesday U.S. guards there regularly desecrated the Qur'an by putting it into a toilet, although he added he never witnessed it himself. Airat Vakhitov, who described himself as a former imam of a mosque in Tatarstan, a majority Muslim republic in southern Russia, is one of seven men released from Guantanamo in 2004 and returned to Russia. He and the six others were held in Russia for three months, then released a year ago. Vakhitov said at a news conference organized by the state RIA-Novosti...

On the 22nd of December, President Barack Obama had the audacity to claim that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility was "probably the No. 1 recruitment tool" for Al Qaeda and its affiliates. There is nothing further from the truth. If anything, Guantanamo Bay is seen not only as beacon of justice but one of American exceptionalism. Justice insomuch that as Americans we are bound by the rule of law, whereas this maxim is eschewed by almost all Asian and Islamic cultures who traditionally view good governance as the rule by leaders who are benevolent and virtuous, and therefore the rule...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The White House admitted Sunday it would be unable to shut Guantanamo Bay in the near future, even as it acknowledged the US naval prison camp is a rallying cry for Islamic extremists. Nearly a year has passed since President Barack Obama's self-imposed deadline to shutter the camp, but his spokesman said legal and legislative hurdles would prevent that goal being realized any time soon. [ For complete coverage of politics and policy, go to Yahoo! Politics ] "It's certainly not going to close in the next month. I think it's going to be a while before...

<p>Congress on Wednesday passed legislation that would effectively bar the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. for trial, rejecting pleas from Obama administration officials who called the move unwise.</p> <p>A defense authorization bill passed by the House and Senate included the language on the offshore prison, which President Barack Obama tried unsuccessfully to close in his first year in office.</p>

President Obama's advisers have been drafting an executive order that would set up a system for periodically reviewing the cases of Guantanamo prisoners whom courts have approved for detention without trial, officials said. The proposal would replace the "annual review boards" that the Bush administration had used to revisit its decision to hold each prisoner. Under that system, which the Obama administration shut down, a panel of military officers periodically reviewed the accusations against and talked to each prisoner who wanted to participate. The prisoners were not represented by lawyers. Officers then decided whether a prisoner was still a threat...

(MEMRI)- Following are excerpts from an interview with Walid Muhammad Hajj a Sudanese released from Guantanamo Prison, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on December 12, 2010: Walid Muhammad Hajj: Yes. The most common method to wear down the brothers was witchcraft. Interviewer: How did they do this? Walid Muhammad Hajj: There were, of course, Jews among the [staff of] the Guantanamo Base, and they would set traps for the guys. Interviewer: Give me an example of witchcraft. Walid Muhammad Hajj: Witchcraft was used on most of the guys. Interviewer: They would cast a spell on them? Walid Muhammad Hajj: Yes,...

Last week, House Democrats on the Appropriations Committee inserted a codicil into next year’s spending plan to prohibit federal funds to be used for the purpose of transferring detainees at Guantanamo Bay to the US for any purpose during FY2011.  Whether this came as a slap from progressives angered over Barack Obama’s tax deal or from moderates angered at the response from progressives to it, the move certainly caught the attention of the White House.  Eric Holder decried it as an unprecedented intrusion on executive authority and demanded its removal, apparently unaware of the Constitution and the House’s “power...

To the United States, Julian Assange may now be Public Enemy Number One. Some American politicians have even called for his execution. But less than a year ago, the founder of WikiLeaks was officially entertained at a US Embassy cocktail party by one of the very diplomats whose secrets he would soon spill to the world. Mr Assange's site had already published dozens of leaks embarrassing to the US, including secret Guantanamo Bay detainee handling manuals and the full emails of Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate. The US State Department condemned the manuals' publication as "a criminal act."

As extension of tax cuts pits Democrats against the White House, President Obama is facing another rebellion from House Democrats -- who slipped a provision into the federal funding bill this week barring alleged terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay from being moved to U.S. prisons. More Video 1 2 3 4 5 PreviousNext VIDEO: Obama Orders Gitmo Shutdown Jake Tapper Watch: Tapper: Obama Orders Gitmo Shutdown VIDEO: Jake Tapper analyzes recent obstacles Obama faces on the world stage. Watch: START Treaty, Gitmo Trial Weigh on President Obama Video of Sen. Inhofe on Gitmo offering colonoscopies. Watch: GOP Sen. Points Out...

<p>The House voted Wednesday to block President Obama from sending Guan tanamo Bay inmates to the continental US for civilian trials, thus ensuring that the prison stays open.</p> <p>Good for the House -- and even better for the American people, who've made it clear that they don't want those trials anywhere near them.</p>

It's known that Julian Assange, the Wikileaks chief, has Guantanamo files, however this sounds fairly explosive. Reuters (via The Nation): WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, jailed in Britain this week, has told media contacts he has a large cache of U.S. government reports about inmates at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, known as GITMO, the last of four major tranches of U.S. government documents which WikiLeaks had acquired and at some point would make public. "He's got the personal files of every prisoner in GITMO," said one person who was in contact with Assange earlier this year.

Maybe this explains why the push to close Guantanamo Bay has slowed to a mere memory. The Obama administration waited until the last minute to publish a report from the Director of National Intelligence on recidivism among Gitmo alumni, and one can see why they wanted to keep it confidential as long as possible. While Barack Obama played Let’s Make a Deal with Europe to get the terrorists behind Door Number Three, more and more of those released previously have returned to terrorism — with dozens no longer able to be located: A de-classified summary of a report about detainees...