Guantanamo

The newest Trump legal team member makes a stunning admission.

After meeting with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, President Barack Obama reiterated his vow to close Guantanamo. The president said that he could Americans safe and release the terrorists held there.

Although President Obama has not yet fulfilled his promise to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the population there is gradually shrinking as detainees are repatriated or released into the custody of foreign governments. The Miami Herald noted recently that of 116 remaining…

CNN is reporting:

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says it won't be easy to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. The outgoing Pentagon chief made the comments to NPR:

The Department of Defense announced this evening that five more terrorists have been transferred from Guantanamo Bay. This time, four have been transferred to Oman and one to Estonia. Here's the press release announcing the release to Oman:

Ex-Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg is back in the news this week. On Sunday, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria interviewed Begg to get his perspective on the recently released report, written by Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, concerning the CIA’s controversial interrogation program.…

House Speaker John Boehner has issued this statement in response to a press report indicating that the Obama administration might bring the Gitmo terrorists to America:

The War on Terror may be over but the warriors seem to be keeping busy.  Which could mean that those already in captivity should be kept there and that space should be available as more are captured.

President Barack Obama and his advisers have long sought to release the five most dangerous Taliban commanders held in U.S. custody at Guantánamo. Bipartisan opposition scuttled a possible deal in 2012 because of a consensus that the “Taliban Five,” as they’ve come to be known, posed too great a…

“Regardless of the circumstances, whatever those circumstances may turn out to be, we still get an American soldier back if he’s held in captivity. Period. Full stop. We don’t condition that. That’s what every mom and dad who sees a son or daughter sent over into [a] war theater should expect not…

Did the detainees in Guantanamo Bay know about the transfer of five senior Taliban commanders before members of Congress?

There is a concerted push to sanitize the records of four of the five Taliban leaders transferred from Guantanamo to Qatar. But before delving into some of the specifics, let us recount the basic facts.

At the White House press briefing Monday, Jay Carney was not asked directly about his statement from June 2013 that "we would not make any decisions about transfer of any detainees without consulting with Congress and without doing so in accordance with U.S. law," as we reported yesterday. However,…

Mullah Omar, the head of the Taliban, doesn’t make statements often. Omar is so reclusive that some have even speculated that he is either dead, or otherwise incapacitated in Pakistan. But on Sunday the Taliban released a statement attributed to Omar, who declared the release of the top five…

The Obama administration announced today that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who has been held by the Taliban for several years, has been freed from his captors. Reading the stories of his newfound freedom it is impossible not to feel joy for Bergdahl and his family. NBC News reports that Bergdahl held up a…

The semi-annual report on "Re-engagement of Detainees Formerly Held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba" was released on Wednesday by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Out of a total of 614 former prisoners (up from 603 six months ago), intelligence has confirmed that 104 (up from 100) have…

Ex-Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg was arrested earlier today as part of raid conducted by counterterrorism officials in the UK. Begg has spent most of his time living in the UK following his release from Guantanamo in 2005. He is one of the most prolific anti-Guantanamo advocates.

The State Department today designated three Ansar al Sharia organizations, as well as three of their leaders, as terrorist entities. The State Department reports that Ansar al Sharia in Derna was “involved” in the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi. Former Guantanamo detainee Sufian…

The Washington Post reports that U.S. officials suspect Sufian Ben Qumu, an ex-Guantanamo detainee, “played a role in the attack on the American compound in Benghazi, Libya, and are planning to designate the group he leads as a foreign terrorism organization.” Ben Qumu is based in Derna, Libya and…

An interesting thing happened when McClatchy newspaper’s Tim Johnson went looking for two former Guantanamo detainees in El Salvador. He discovered they had left the country. A State Department spokesman says the U.S. government is aware of their departure, but “will not comment on the specifics of…

An unclassified version of a September report from the Director of National Intelligence reveals that another five former Guantanamo Bay detainees have either been confirmed as reengaging in terrorism or are suspected of doing so.  The report comes just as a judge in Algeria has approved parole of…

Google Glasses have been banned at the Guantánamo Bay war court, a Miami Herald reporter tweets:

In a newly released video, Ayman al Zawahiri, confederate and successor of Osama bin Laden, vows to free al Qaeda’s “imprisoned brothers” at Guantánamo. Seeking to capitalize on the controversy over the U.S. government’s force-feeding of some detainees, Zawahiri says the ongoing hunger strike…

The White House press secretary announced that the Obama administration will be sending two Gitmo inmates to Algeria.

Shortly after opening its political office in Doha, Qatar earlier this week, the Taliban floated the idea of exchanging U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who has been in captivity since 2009, for the top five Taliban leaders in U.S. custody at Guantanamo. The offer, which has been a longstanding…

Thursday, at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, U.S. Chargé d’Affaires Gary Robbins delivered another response to the "many concerns" expressed by Russia about the ongoing hunger strike by many of the terrorist detainees at the Guantánamo Bay facility:

On MSNBC, host Melissa Harris-Perry compared Gitmo terrorist inmates to American slaves:

In a speech today, President Obama is calling for the transfer for Gitmo inmates to the United States.

President Barack Obama talked about Gitmo prisoners today and said, "I don't want these individuals to die."

White House spokesman Jay Carney took a minute before his press briefing today to reflect. "I want to welcome you to the first full day of the President’s second term.  It’s a tremendous honor and privilege to be here working for this President and for the country," the former Time magazine…

Four years ago today, on January 22, 2009, President Barack Obama signed "EXECUTIVE ORDER -- REVIEW AND DISPOSITION OF INDIVIDUALS DETAINED AT THE GUANTÁNAMO BAY NAVAL BASE AND CLOSURE OF DETENTION FACILITIES." In particular, the executive order stated:

The White House revealed yesterday that there "approximately 166 detainees at Guantanamo Bay" right now. The news was in Obama's "war powers resolution" letter, which is meant "to keep the Congress informed about deployments of U.S. Armed Forces equipped for combat."

Omar Khadr has been sent from Guantanamo to Canada, after returning from the jihad in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Khadr is slated to stay in custody for the time being. It is difficult to think of a more mythologized figure in the post-9/11 war on terror. For the worldwide left, Khadr has become a…

Jose Rodriguez, the former head of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center and National Clandestine Service, has made quite a splash in the past couple of days. Building on arguments in his new book, Hard Measures, Rodriguez has dealt with all of the most controversial aspects of the CIA’s response to…

Some in the Obama administration are desperate to jumpstart peace negotiations with the Taliban in advance of NATO’s summit in Chicago next month.

The Department of Defense announced on Thursday that two Guantanamo detainees had been transferred to El Salvador. The DoD did not name them in its press release, but the New York Times identified the men as two Uighurs (Muslims from western China): Abdul Razak and Ahmed Mohamed. 

Terrorist mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), credited with being instrumental in al Qaeda carrying out the 9/11 attacks, will be tried along with other high-level terrorists by a military commission, the Defense Department announced today. The arraignment will take place "at [the] Naval…

The Obama administration’s attempt at peace talks with the Taliban has been fraught with problems. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported on another: Qatar.

How bad is the press’s reporting on Guantanamo? Many examples come to mind, but the most recent one is this Associated Press article by Kimberly Dozier.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has released new summary statistics on the recidivism of former Guantanamo detainees. 167 ex-Gitmo detainees are now either “confirmed” or “suspected” of reengaging in “terrorist or insurgent activities” after their release, according to…

During a hearing on Thursday, Democratic senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, publicly doubted the Obama administration’s decision to consider transferring five senior Taliban leaders from Guantanamo to Qatar.

There is controversy at Guantanamo over a policy that allows authorities to review attorney-client communications. The Associated Press reports on one reason this policy was implemented in the first place: 

Ten years ago this week, the U.S. government opened the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba detention facility. And three years ago this month, shortly after his inauguration, President Barack Obama ordered Guantanamo shuttered within one year. For a variety of reasons, Gitmo remains open, with approximately 171…

The trial by military commission of top al Qaeda operative Abd al Rahim al Nashiri is set to commence today at Guantanamo. Nashiri’s time in U.S. detention has been controversial because he was one of only three senior terrorists waterboarded by the CIA. Nashiri was subjected to other so-called…

"M" sent in James Bond. MacArthur ordered in the 1st Marine Division. Today, when the Department of Defense has a complex crisis requiring brawn and brains, Brigadier General Mark Martins gets the call. His latest job: Hit the reset button at Gitmo. 

During a joint hearing of the Senate and House intelligence committees yesterday, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified that the recidivism rate for former Guantanamo detainees has risen to an estimated 27 percent. The total number of “confirmed” and “suspected” recidivists,…

One of the most widely publicized controversies in Australia this week involves former Guantanamo detainee David Hicks. Hicks pled guilty to providing material support for terrorism before a military commission at Gitmo as part of a plea bargain and was repatriated to Australia shortly thereafter…

On Saturday, Benjamin Wittes and Robert Chesney published another response at the Lawfare Blog to questions I think Matthew Olsen, who has been nominated for the position of National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) director, should be asked at his forthcoming Senate confirmation hearing. Wittes and…

My suggestion that Matthew Olsen answer questions about his work on the Guantanamo Review Task Force during his Senate confirmation hearing has clearly struck a nerve at the Lawfare Blog. There are two posts replying to my original piece – one by Benjamin Wittes and another by Robert Chesney.

On July 1, President Obama announced that he was nominating Matthew Olsen for the position of National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) director. Olsen has served in a number of national security-related government positions, including as the head of Obama’s Guantanamo Review Task Force.

Reuters has published its account of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Like other versions of the story that have come out, this one says that the key information about the courier who unwittingly led authorities to bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound came from Hassan Ghul – an al Qaeda operative who was…

A recently leaked threat assessment prepared at Guantanamo draws into question the Obama administration’s analysis of a detainee who was transferred to Yemen shortly before all future transfers to the unstable nation were suspended.

In the aftermath of Osama bin Laden’s death, the Washington Post ran a four-part series by men and women who had their “lives shattered and transformed by” the terror master. One of the contributors was especially curious: former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg.

The exact identity of Osama bin Laden’s courier, who unwittingly led to his boss’s demise, remains to be confirmed, but CNN reports that it was a Kuwaiti known as Abu Ahmad al Kuwaiti. If that’s true, then obviously it wasn’t the courier mentioned in the leaked Gitmo file written for Abu Faraj al…

A recently leaked Guantanamo file names Osama bin Laden’s “designated courier.” The file, which summarizes the available intelligence on top al Qaeda operative Abu Faraj al Libbi, reads: 

A lot of parties inside the American government, from President Obama on down, will rightly claim credit for the demise of Osama bin Laden. But one party, in particular, deserves mention because its members have been repeatedly demonized in the press: the Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO). 

There are two competing versions of former Guantanamo detainee Sami al Hajj’s story. The first, which has long been endorsed by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and many other journalists/activists, portrays Hajj as an innocent Al Jazeera journalist who was wrongly swept up in the…

A two-page assessment of Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr is among the newly leaked WikiLeaks files. Khadr, of course, killed American serviceman Christopher Speer during a shootout in Afghanistan. His many advocates have turned him into something of a false martyr, however, claiming that Khadr is…

Late last year, Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr agreed to a plea deal that will require him to serve a maximum of eight years, with just one of those years in Cuba. Khadr is then set to be returned to Canada – his family’s adopted home, which they left for the Taliban and al Qaeda’s Afghanistan…

"'People have to believe there’s a fundamental problem with Medicare that has to be fixed,' said Carl Forti, a veteran GOP strategist. 'If they don’t believe there’s a problem, then why would they support a change?'”

On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal filed by five Uighur detainees held at Guantanamo. A D.C. District Court granted the Uighur detainees their freedom inside the U.S. A D.C. Circuit Court ruling overturned the District Court’s decision. And so the Uighurs attempted to appeal…

In its editorial denouncing the Obama administration’s decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his 9/11 co-conspirators before a military tribunal, instead of a federal court, the New York Times writes:

Yesterday, the House Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing on “Guantanamo Detainee Transfer Policy and Recidivism.” None of the witnesses claimed that Guantanamo is a major recruiting tool for al Qaeda. That omission is refreshing.

Newsweek’s Sami Yousafzai and Ron Moreau have published a list of the “12 of the most-hunted insurgent commanders on the front lines” in Afghanistan. The list is made up “of lesser-known lieutenants who include some of the insurgency’s most important and aggressive operatives.” But one of the…

"Has Ryan’s budget boxed in Obama?"

If Guantanamo were really one of al Qaeda’s principal recruiting tools, as President Obama and members of his administration have repeatedly claimed, then the facility would probably be referenced regularly in the terror group’s propaganda. It is not. Instead, other themes dominate Osama bin…

Catherine Herridge reports:

The New F***ing Tone Is Here.

The New York Times's latest Guantanamo editorial has been rightly criticized for failing to grapple seriously with the problems created by the Supreme Court's 2008 decision in Boumediene v. Bush. In that case, the Supreme Court created a constitutional right for detainees to directly challenge…

Judicial Watch, a conservative foundation that seeks to improve government transparency, has obtained two important Guantanamo-related documents from the Department of Defense via a Freedom of Information Act request. One of the documents is a draft presentation dated February 4, 2004. Reading…

Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi just can’t accept the fact that anyone other than al Qaeda wants him gone. CNN reports:

Imagine the outrage if Tea Partiers had done this, Part MCLVII: "Wisconsin GOP Senator Glenn Grothman chased, trapped by hecklers, saved by Dem. Rep. Hulsey"

In an editorial published yesterday (“A Right Without a Remedy”), the New York Times complained that the D.C. Circuit Court “has dramatically restricted” the Supreme Court’s Boumediene ruling, which granted Guantanamo detainees the right to petition federal courts for their habeas corpus rights.…

Eric Holder, earlier today at a House hearing, expressed skepticism on whether Gitmo would be closed before the president finished his first term in office:

Ben Farmer of The Daily Telegraph (UK) reports that Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s peace council is going to send a delegation to Guantanamo. The council is requesting the release of about 20 Taliban commanders and leaders held there. There is no official indication, as of yet, that the Obama…

Yesterday, CIA director Leon Panetta said that Osama bin Laden, if he were captured by the U.S., would "probably" be sent to Gitmo. On that same day, Jay Carney, Obama's new press secretary, said that “The president remains committed to closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, because as our military…

Well, it is pretty clear that more than two years after ordering Gitmo closed, the Obama administration still hasn't come up with a better solution for holding high-value detainees. How do we know? Because Obama’s CIA director, Leon Panetta, says that the U.S. would likely send Osama bin Laden or…

The Berkeley city council was considering inviting over "one or two" Gitmo detainees for a stay. But, last night, the city council seems to have at least in part come to its senses: By a vote of 4-1, and with 4 members not voting, the city council decided not to bring the detainees to Cindy…

Debra Saunders, on how some in Berkeley, California want to bring Gitmo detainees to their city:

Bruce Riedel, who today defends the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, claiming that it’s a viable alternative to the current regime, said some silly things in a recent speech delivered at Tufts Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy. The Tufts Daily reports:

Conventional wisdom among critics of Guantanamo is that preventive detention runs counter to the American civil rights tradition. Critics of the critics of course can point to previous wars in which enemy combatants were incarcerated until the war’s end. But now, a new study by Ben Wittes of…

State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley wrote the following on his Twitter page early this morning:

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) released the fourth edition of its Inspire magazine online in recent days. As with the previous three editions, the PDF publication is a combination of deadly serious threats and the comical, with American street slang mixed with jihadist ideology. For…

Tuesday morning, NBC News broadcast an interview with Saad Iqbal Madni, a former Guantanamo detainee. Madni’s story is an old one and there is no real “news” here. The New York Times published basically the same story more than two years ago. (You can read my analysis of the Times piece here.)

Here is a new myth about Guantanamo. The attorneys for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claim that if Assange is extradited to Sweden he may end up detained in Cuba. The Guardian (UK) reports:

The Obama administration supports the establishment of a jihad rehabilitation program in Yemen, according to remarks Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made during a town hall in the region. Clinton said the efforts would be modeled after jihad rehabilitation programs in Saudi Arabia supported by…

On Thursday, the Department of Defense announced the transfer of an Algerian named Saiid Farhi from Guantanamo to his home country. The second line of the DoD’s press release reads: “Farhi was ordered released by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Nov. 19, 2009.” What the DoD’s…

The Obama administration fancies itself as the ‘most transparent’ presidential administration ever. Yet, when it comes to Guantanamo Bay detainees, the White House has consistently been less than forthcoming. Today, Eli Lake picks up a letter that Republican members of the Senate Intelligence…

On Saudi television last week, a former Guantanamo detainee named Jabir al Fayfi claimed that he and his fellow Saudi detainees were radicalized during their time in American custody. According to a write-up on alriyadh.com, al Fayfi claimed “that the weakness of religious knowledge among the Saudi…

The Wall Street Journal editors write:

During a press conference on December 22, President Obama was asked about the difficulties his administration has encountered in trying to close Guantanamo. The president explained (emphasis added):

Politico reports:

Earlier this month, Al Jazeera broadcast a lengthy interview with Walid Muhammad Hajj, who was detained at Guantanamo for several years until he was transferred to his native Sudan in 2008. (MEMRI has provided an excerpt of the interview here.)

The latest poll from Rasmussen:

A State Department spokesman said today that the Obama administration expected that many detainees released or transferred from Guantanamo Bay would return to jihad. The spokesman, P. J. Crowley, made the comments in response to questions about a new report from the Director of National…

On the recently announced soaring recidivism rate for Gitmo detainees returning to terror, State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley said on Fox News that "we actually expected this to happen."

Via Sam Stein at the Huffington Post (“Obama Administration Pushes Back On Report That Gitmo Recidivism Has ‘Soared’”), an anonymous Obama administration official has offered a reply (of sorts) to my piece on the DNI’s latest assessment of Guantanamo recidivism. It is odd that anyone in the Obama…

Gitmo is staying open.

150 former Guantanamo detainees are either “confirmed or suspected of reengaging in terrorist or insurgent activities,” according to a new intelligence assessment released by the Director of National Intelligence’s office on Tuesday. In total, 598 detainees have been transferred out of U.S. custody…

A cable released by WikiLeaks that is available on the New York Times’s web site underscores the difficulties that both the Bush and Obama administrations have had in transferring war on terror detainees to Afghan custody. The cable, which originated at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul on August 6, 2009,…

It is one thing if a left-wing human rights organization like Amnesty International cannot tell the difference between a jihadist and a legitimate political dissident. It is quite another if the U.S. State Department suffers from the same intellectual confusion. One diplomatic cable released by…

The press has highlighted several documents from the latest WikiLeaks cache that deal with the Obama administration’s attempts to close Guantanamo. The administration can’t close Gitmo without transferring a large number of the remaining detainees to other countries. But its efforts in this vein…

Will the Obama administration cave to international pressure and transfer a Guantanamo detainee it has previously found too dangerous to release?

Douglas Murray writes about the "obscene" payments to terrorists that the British government plans to make in today's Times of London:

In the past couple of days we’ve learned more about the intelligence that allowed Western authorities to neutralize the threat posed by two bombs shipped from Yemen via cargo plane. (Other bombs may still be in play, according to press accounts, but that is not a certainty.)

Berlin

The New York Times reports that a federal appeals court has shot down a lawsuit against Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., a Boeing subsidiary that reportedly arranged flights for the CIA as part of the Agency’s extraordinary rendition program. The suit was brought by the ACLU and five former detainees. But…

Fred Lucas of CNSNews.com has published an interesting story regarding the Defense Intelligence Agency’s (DIA) response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents pertaining to its Guantanamo recidivism studies. CNSNews.com’s reporting is worth your read, but most of the…

When Ghaleb Nassar al Bihani traveled to Afghanistan to fight alongside al Qaeda and the Taliban, he probably never imagined that he would be captured and his detention would be turned into a legal fight over what role, if any, international law plays in restricting the president of the United…

The Obama administration has delayed the trial by military commission of Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, the mastermind of the USS Cole attack, according to the Washington Post. The Defense Department denies this, saying in a statement that prosecutors “are actively investigating the case against Mr.…

As part of his defense before a military commission at Guantanamo, Omar Khadr’s attorneys filed a motion claiming that his confessions were the product of torture. Khadr made incriminating statements (including that he killed an American serviceman) only after he was subjected to various…

Al Qaeda really wants to kill Prince Muhammad Bin Naif Bin Abdul Aziz, who is the Saudi deputy interior minister and oversees the Kingdom’s counterterrorism efforts. According to the Saudi Gazette, al Qaeda has tried to kill the prince four times since 2004.

Omar Khadr’s trial before a military commission at Guantanamo has reportedly been delayed once again. This time, Khadr’s attorney has suffered some illness and the trial has been put on hold for thirty days, according to Agence France-Presse.

The New York Times has published an article by Jeremy Peters, who whines about the military’s media tours at Guantanamo Bay. (Note: I was on such a tour in December 2009.) This (news?) piece begins with a bit of snark: “Welcome to Guantánamo Bay, where your tour guide will never leave your side but…

President Obama’s Gitmo problem (that is, his inability to shut the facility down, even though he wanted to do so in just one year) is in many ways a Yemen problem. The Yemeni detainees accounted for roughly 40 percent of the Gitmo population when Obama took office. But his administration has…

Senate Republicans have blocked a vote on President Obama’s nominee to fill the Director of National Intelligence spot, James Clapper. Why? They want more transparency from the most transparent administration in history.

How many Gitmo detainees traveled to Afghanistan to find a wife? A fair number, if you accept their cover stories at face value, something only a fool would do.