BIDEN RELEASES YEMENI TERRORISTS FROM GUANTANAMO. DOING THE RIGHT THING FOR THE WRONG REASONS

In the most dramatic step in years to reduce the population at the U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the Biden administration has transferred 11 Yemeni detainees to Oman, which has agreed to help resettle them and provide security monitoring.

All of the men, who were captured in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, had been held for more than two decades without being charged or put on trial. All of them were approved for transfer by national security officials more than two years ago and sometimes long before that -- one had been cleared for transfer since 2010 -- yet had remained behind bars due to political and diplomatic factors. NPR

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. New York Post