Ex-Gitmo Detainee May Be Al Qaeda Leader

[sabra]

Source: CBS News

Unverified Internet Posting Prompts Challenges To Obama Stance On Prosecuting Terrorists

(CBS/AP) An Internet posting purportedly by al Qaeda in Yemen says the group's No. 2 is a Saudi national who is a former Guantanamo detainee.

The Yemeni group - known as "al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula" - posted the statement this week on a militant Web site that regularly carries al Qaeda messages.

It says the man returned to his home in Saudi Arabia after his release from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba about a year ago and from there went to Yemen to join the terror group.

...

Harman, a California Democrat, said Friday on CBS' The Early Show that President Barack Obama has to "proceed extremely carefully" in closing the prison.

But she says there is no justification for "disappearing people" in a place outside the reach of U.S. law.

"As President Obama said two days ago, there's a false choice between our safety and our values"


Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/23/terror/main47... ;topStories

[Kittycat]

1. So he joined after he was tortured. Imagine that.

[winter999]

9. Before Guantanimo, he was involved in the embassy bombings in Yemen.

That's how he got invited to Cuba in the first place.

Al Quaeda --> Gitmo --> Saudi Rehab --> Al Quaeda

The circle of poo.

[stillcool]

10. Where did you read that?

I read this in the fact filled article :
CBS/AP) An Internet posting purportedly by al Qaeda in Yemen says the group's No. 2 is a Saudi national who is a former Guantanamo detainee.
--------------------
The Internet statement identified the man as Said Ali al-Shihri and says his prisoner number at Guantanamo was 372.

The posting could not immediately be verified, and Yemen and Saudi Arabian authorities would not immediately comment on it

[JDPriestly]

12. If they had real evidence against this guy, he should have been

tried, convicted and sentenced. If they had no evidence, that is the end of it regardless of what he is doing now or where he is. People are arrested all the time, guilty as anything and released because the prosecutor lacks the evidence to prove a case. That is the way our justice system works.

If this guy does something wrong, then we can punish him. Innocent until proved guilty works no matter what. The only alternative is the completely arbitrary use of imprisonment. The alternative is a totalitarian society in which individuals have no rights. There just isn't any middle ground on this one.

Now, if it turns out that the Bush administration, under pressure from the Saudi government, released a prisoner without bringing charges, without trial, against whom they had the evidence to possibly get a conviction, we have a different problem. But if we were holding this person although we did not have the evidence to convict him, we had no choice but to release him.

Guantanamo no doubt created a lot of monsters -- a lot of people who have nothing left but their hatred of Guantanamo. Guantanamo was a horrible crime. America will pay for the crimes of the Bush administration at Guantanamo for a very long time.

[mallard]

16. Re: you got that right

"If they had real evidence against this guy, he should have been tried, convicted and sentenced. If they had no evidence, that is the end of it regardless of what he is doing now or where he is. People are arrested all the time, guilty as anything and released because the prosecutor lacks the evidence to prove a case. That is the way our justice system works."

It's hard to believe any honest readers here at DU would for a second buy the story wholesale, given the topic, in the first place.

Avoiding the embarrassment and legal implications of waging war merely for private gains and a skewed vision of security enhancement (mainly for Israel) 'allowing the need' for violent military subjugation of Arab and Muslim populations (still ongoing to the extreme) - using fear of capture as fear of torture - involves success with exactly this brand of doctored imagery. It's a key step on their way out from having total control ... to fix truth itself ... for these past eight years.

Oh, so if we release others of these strays who wound up in Gitmo, they'll only turn back against us; not: if we release others they will petition for an open review of the scam and turn opinion into the political will to really expose the entire 9/11 hoax.

D'uh.

Who are these mad anti-humanists among us who still want this kind of neocon face-saving propaganda to fly?

Does the truth trouble them THAT much; more than all the death, destruction and economic boondoggle?

9/11 was what put them in there, not whatever they were up to at time of capture or especially at the time of 9/11. The whole Guantanamo deal is a bullshit stunt and rules-of-engagement-bending fix for war. This argument wouldn't even still be going on if not for proliferous anti-Muslim propagandists in the media and other friends of the US/IDF operations.

They keep demanding more, too!

[annabanana]

44. Sorry... I'll need some kind of a link for that. . . . n/t

(fox, newsmax and the DOD do not quality as legitimate sources)

[merh]

57. Where do you get that from?

What source do you have that supports your position that he was AQ before Gitmo torture?

The quoted source states that he joined AQ after his release.

What a surprise, we torture and abuse, deny basic rights to humans and they take it personal and now see us as the enemy.

[Sultana]

15. They are not al innocent

Some are very sick terrorist individuals

[EFerrari]

20. What is your evidence for that statement? I'd be interested to see it.

Thanks.

[ronnie624]

42. It is disappointing that so many allow this sort of propaganda to define their reality.

There is no shortage of good information about the myth of "Al Qaeda" and the geopolitical aims that are masked by the "war on terror". How strange that so many otherwise intelligent individuals, can be so easily compelled to believe in such nonsense.

[Dreamer Tatum]

50. Yet Obama is lobbing missiles in Pakistan.

Got a take on that? Is he in on it, too?

[Kittycat]

21. No one is disputing that. But most were, and after being tortured...

You really can't blame them for wanting to get even.

[underpants]

17. It's very thin organizational structure in alQaeda

The newest guy is #3 when someone else joins he becomes a Number 2

[Hugabear]

2. Shit, Number Twos are popping up everywhere nowadays

How long before I'm considered an Al Qaeda Number Two?

[Sultana]

22. Tag, you're it

[denverbill]

3. So, 'up 10%' of released detainees went back and became terrorists?

"Hoekstra, citing a New York Times article, suggested up to 10 percent of released enemy combatants have made their way back to the battlefield to attack American troops."


That means, 'at least 90%' of the released detainees didn't, so they were probably either not really terrorists or were just aiding and abetting more than being hard-core killers.

Can you imagine if we jailed 9 innocent people in the US for every 1 guilty person?

Blackstone said "Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."

It's a shame on America that we've managed to utterly reverse that principle.

[Solly Mack]

4. Bush has been creating terrorists from the word invade

Kidnap people off the streets, hold them indefinitely, torture them...and they are supposed to come out of it all with warm and fuzzy feelings? Many won't seek revenge...but some will. Anyone that didn't know that beforehand is an idiot and anyone hoping it against it now is a fool.

That aside...nice timing. Snort

[nyc 4 Biden]

5. Obama announces he wants to shut down Guantanamo and days

later a story comes out claiming released prisoners are back with the terrorists.

Oh Noes we can't close it down now!!!

This all sounds fishy.

[sabra]

6. plus some one pushed this story to every MSM source -

[annabanana]

45. The sickness has filtered right into corpomedia's DNA. . n/t

[JDPriestly]

13. When was this guy who is now such an allegedly prominent terrorist released?

[nyc 4 Biden]

14. "...released from Guantánamo in November 2007."

According to...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/world/middleeast/23ye...

[annabanana]

46. I guess Bush didn't think he was one of the "worst of the worst"

Maybe he wasn't when they picked him up. .

[EFerrari]

19. That's right. And Jane Harmon, that little torture enabler, is out there

warning the new president. Convenient!

[CubicleGuy]

7. Maybe he figured...

... if they're going to treat me like a terrorist, I might as well become one.

[The Stranger]

8. Judith Miller, are ya back, hon? We missed ya!

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. We dealt with the mafia...sometimes they got acquitted

That's how law works. Sometimes, you lose the legal fight. Sometimes, the mafiosi won their legal fight and went right back to criminality. It is not a reason to abandon the rule of law tout court, now is it?

[underpants]

18. Who released him?

Well, who?

[Psephos]

23. Guantánamo detainee resurfaces in terrorist group

Source: International Herald Tribune

BEIRUT: The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda's Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order that President Barack Obama signed that the detention center be shut down within a year.

The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Yemen's capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with Al Qaeda in Yemen. His status was announced in an Internet statement by the militant group and was confirmed by a U.S. counterterrorism official. "They're one and the same guy," said the official, who insisted on anonymity because he was discussing an intelligence analysis. "He returned to Saudi Arabia in 2007, but his movements to Yemen remain unclear."

The development came as Republican legislators criticized the plan to close the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in the absence of any measures for dealing with current detainees. But it also helps explain why the new administration wants to move cautiously, taking time to work out a plan to cope with the complications.

Almost half the camp's remaining detainees are Yemenis, and efforts to repatriate them depend in part on the creation of a Yemeni rehabilitation program - financed in part by the United States - similar to the Saudi one. The Saudi government has claimed that no graduate of its program has returned to terrorism.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/23/mideast/detainee...

[LakeSamish706]

24. So the question is, why was this particular individual released in the first place?

He was obviously released by the Bush Administration, and what was the reason for this?

[HillbillyBob]

28. He was NOT a terrorist before bushbois got hold of him

He bought and sold rugs for his family business. Was on Keith Olberman of course the rpgs are going to conflate it as he was not just a rug dealer prior to being picked up and tortured at gitmo...Making terrorist faster than they can kill em.

[LakeSamish706]

32. I'm not taking a stance one way or the other, my question is why did the Bush Administration....

release him? There are many detainees at Gitmo that are probably not Terrorists, but are still being held. So why was this person released?

[KeepItReal]

30. Precisely.

This guy had a history and they let him go?

[iamthebandfanman]

25. what perfect timing ;) n/t

[Sultana]

38. To make Obama look bad for closing Gitmo

the evil of the Bush Adminstration and the Saudis never ceases to amaze me.

[ohio2007]

53. "...released from Guantánamo in November 2007."......yes, timing you can believe in

[drmeow]

26. Hmmm - he was released by the Bush

Administration to our "friends" the Saudis - Saudi Arabia is where Bin Laden and most of the 9/11 hijackers came from - now he's back as an Al Qaeda operative? Fancy that.

[Warren Stupidity]

27. We gave him to our good friends the Saudis

who it seems let him go free rather than chopping off his head. What a convenient development.

[annabanana]

47. hmmm. . who else is a Saudi "worst of the worst"... still "out there"?. . n/t

[truth2power]

29. And water is wet...If I had been held at Gitmo

I'd become a terrorist, too. Why is this surprising?

[bottomtheweaver]

31. and anonymous "U.S. counterterrorism official" means a CIA guy.

The CIA is a propaganda organ. This is bullshit.

[annabanana]

49. Probably one at risk if there are any legal repercussions for torturing. . n/t

[bottomtheweaver]

58. Yes. The CIA owns the media and Bushlers own the CIA

so we're going to be getting 24/7 pushback from the noise machine for the next eight years unless some big changes come down the pike, and I'm not sure anyone is prepared to make them. But I could be wrong and I'm optimistic.

[Politicalboi]

33. I wonder if the Repubes

Realize they can times this by 100,000 or more in Iraq. We have created so many enemies thanks to Bush. I think we should get attorneys for these men and get to the bottom of this. And if all they want is to see Bush/Cheney and the rest of the cabal get tried in court for their crimes then that is what we HAVE to do. And of course they will be allowed to sue the Bushies too.

This is just another reason why President Obama can't just let Bush walk. Can you imagine if the people of Iraq can see Bush/Cheney being tried in court. And like I've said a Brazillion times the trial should be held in Iraq. You know just like if you happened to kill someone in Texas you would be tried in TEXAS. And hope GWBush wasn't the Governor. It would bring some kind of justice to them and maybe we wouldn't have as many enemies. This is a REAL matter of National Security.

[struggle4progress]

34. dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[alcibiades_mystery]

35. Yeah, and sometimes when we let mafiosi out of jail

They went back to - gasp - the mob! And yet we somehow managed to continue on with the judicial system without secret prisons and other tyrannical nonsense. The entire argument for the Bush administration is finally being exposed for what it is: the utter dehumanization of the "terrorist." A human is subject to laws. The terrorist, on the other hand, operates like a phantom within the Bushist legal imagination: its very presence is an abomination. The whole conception is religious first and foremost: pre-Enlightenment demon searches and suchlike stupidities.

[midnight]

36. I'm not an expert on terrism, but it seems simple to understand

that if you take innocent people and lock them up without charge, you might get terrorism via injustice. Just a thought that may need to be considered.

[dothemath]

37. and the 'credit' goes to .......................

2007? Detained, never charged, never tried - then released - to Saudi Arabia.????
Help me out here - who was the idiot in charge in 2007?

Republicans are already working on a plan to make sure this detainee released by Chimpie never sees the light of day - even if he is photographed committing a terrorist act here. Might have to put him in a small plane, or something.

[McCamy Taylor]

39. Gitmo is where Al Qaeda indoctrinates their new leaders. Everybody knows that, Even W. His Saudi

masters want it that way. W. softens them up for Allah, then they get sent back to Saudi Arabia and released to Al Qaeda to begin harassing the Shiites. You didn't think they were spending all that money at Gitmo to protect us did you? It's to make Poppy's bosses happy.

[Political Heretic]

40. Who fucking cares? It doesn't make Gitmo any more right.

[conspirator]

41. ARREST or kill all muslims. They are all potential al qaeda #1s or #2s in the future (sarcasm)nt

[ohio2007]

43. Saudi rehab; Trading Bombs for Crayons: Terrorists Get 'Art Therapy'

But why not do us all a favor and show the drawings of "the bad terrorists" gone bad again ? So that we may have an inkling into the workings of their inner maggot.

In what is being touted as 'jihadi rehab,' al Qaeda terrorists newly released from Guantanamo prison or caught on the streets of Iraq before their suicide bombs could explode are putting finger paints and crayons to paper in order to secure their freedom.


The Saudi government, which is running the rehabilitation program on a former royal family retreat outside Riyadh, claims that some 700 former al Qaeda terrorists have been reprogrammed.

The coloring, said program founder Dr. Awad Alyami to his terrorists-turned-art-students, gets "negative energy out on paper." "It's safe here," Alyami said. "It's on the paper, it's not outside." The men also get religious re-education and are promised a new home and car if they behave.

snip

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=6719704&page=1

rehab works


#69 of your 72 virgin rewards in the afterlife

[treestar]

48. Then it was the Chimpadministration that let him go

Either they let go of an actual terrorist, or they created one.

ETA: That is, if it's even true.

[Sgent]

51. I never had a problem with these guys being held as POW's

My problem was the torture, interrogation techniques, etc. If we want to hold them as POW's, allowing for Red Cross oversight, etc. I have no issues.

[ohio2007]

52. Two ex-Guantanamo inmates appear in Al-Qaeda video

One of the two former inmates, a Saudi man identified as Abu Sufyan al-Azdi al-Shahri,

or prisoner number 372, has been elevated to the senior ranks of Al-Qaeda in Yemen, a US counter-terrorism official told AFP.

Three other men appear in the video, including Abu al-Hareth Muhammad al-Oufi, identified as an Al-Qaeda field commander. SITE later said he was prisoner No. 333.

On the video, al-Shihri is seen sitting with three other men before a flag of the Islamic State of Iraq, the front for Al-Qaeda in Iraq.


By Allah, imprisonment only increased our persistence in our principles for which we went out, did jihad for, and were imprisoned for," al-Shihri was quoted as saying.

Al-Shiri was transferred from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia in 2007, the US counter-terrorism official said.

The other men in the video are identified as Commander Abu Baseer al-Wahayshi and Abu Hureira Qasm al-Rimi (also known as Abu Hureira al-Sana'ani).

The Defense Department has said as many as 61 former Guantanamo detainees -- about 11 percent of 520 detainees transferred from the detention center and released -- are believed to have returned to the fight.

The latest case highlights the risk the new US administration faces as it moves to empty Guantanamo of its remaining 245 prisoners and close the controversial detention camp within a year.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hZfI...

imo
Saddam would have held them for only 24 hrs.......

[ronnie624]

54. From your article:

"A Pentagon spokesman, Commander Jeffrey Gordon, on Saturday declined to confirm the SITE information."


Unraveling the Myth of Al Qaida

<http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7... >

The making of the terror myth

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2004/oct/15/broadcastin... >

The Myth of AQI

<http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0710.til... >

Perpetuating the al-Qaeda-Iraq Myth

<http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1811318,0... [br />


“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance or conscientious stupidity.” - Martin Luther King Jr

[ohio2007]

55. So you are saying these guys

never were in Gitmo and are working for the CIA even today ?
...Don't forget to post articles about the CIA poppy prodution in Afghanistan



Denial is a river in Egypt

[ronnie624]

56. No. Those are your words, not mine. n/t