U.S. Suspends Release of Yemeni Guantanamo Detainees

The U.S. announced on Jan. 6 that the transfer of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay back to Yemen will be suspended.
U.S. Suspends Release of Yemeni Guantanamo Detainees
Yemenis dressed in orange jumpsuits and army camouflage protest in Sanaa on May 26, 2009, calling on the Yemeni government to step up efforts in order to free relatives held at the controversial U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison. (Khaled Fazaa/AFP/Getty Images)
1/6/2010
Updated:
10/1/2015
<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/87979101.jpg" alt="Yemenis dressed in orange jumpsuits and army camouflage protest in Sanaa on May 26, 2009, calling on the Yemeni government to step up efforts in order to free relatives held at the controversial U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison. (Khaled Fazaa/AFP/Getty Images)" title="Yemenis dressed in orange jumpsuits and army camouflage protest in Sanaa on May 26, 2009, calling on the Yemeni government to step up efforts in order to free relatives held at the controversial U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison. (Khaled Fazaa/AFP/Getty Images)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-1824202"/></a>
Yemenis dressed in orange jumpsuits and army camouflage protest in Sanaa on May 26, 2009, calling on the Yemeni government to step up efforts in order to free relatives held at the controversial U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison. (Khaled Fazaa/AFP/Getty Images)
The Obama administration announced on Jan. 6 that they will suspend the transfer of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay back to Yemen, due to deteriorating security conditions in the country.

“With respect to Yemen in particular, there’s an ongoing security situation which we have been confronting for some time, along with our Yemeni partner,” said Mr. Obama during a briefing following a meeting with the national security team.

Leaders of U.S. intelligence, homeland security, and law enforcement agencies were ordered to review security measures after a suspected terrorist managed to smuggle a homemade explosive device onto a plane bound for Detroit on Christmas Day, which failed to detonate.

The Yemeni branch of al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack and the suspect admitted that he received training and instructions during his stay in Yemen.

Of the 198 prisoners currently held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, nearly half of them are from Yemen.

Mr. Obama admitted last November he will be unable to meet his one-year deadline to close the infamous facility, as he promised when entering office on Jan. 20, 2008. During the briefing, however, Mr. Obama reaffirmed his original intention. “We will close Guantanamo prison, which has damaged our national security interests and become a tremendous recruiting tool for al-Qaeda,” he said.

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a U.S.-based human rights group organizing lawyers to represent prisoners at Guantanamo, said the White House decision to halt the repatriation of the Yemeni prisoners is unconscionable.

“Dozens of men from Yemen who have been cleared for release after extensive scrutiny by the government’s Guantanamo Review Task Force are about to be left in limbo once more due to politics, not facts. Many are about to begin their ninth year in indefinite detention,” said the CCR in a statement. “We know from the military’s own records that most of the detainees at Guantanamo have no link to terrorism.”

A Pentagon report from April 2008 claims that 14 percent of ex-Guantanamo Bay detainees joined or are suspected to have joined terrorist groups—an increase from the 11 percent reported in December 2008.

A U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity told Reuters that 20 percent of men released from Guantanamo Bay have either joined or are suspected to have joined military groups such as al-Qaeda.

In 2006, 23 suspected al-Qaeda members escaped from a prison in Yemen. According to Interpol, the escape “involved a 140-meter [460-foot] long tunnel dug by the prisoners and co-conspirators outside.”

Several of the men who escaped were involved in the attack on the USS Cole in 2000. The attack killed 17 sailors after a small boat loaded with explosives detonated on the port side of the warship docked in a Yemen harbor.