Armies of Liberation

The military tribunal at Gitmo ruled today that Saleh cannot be compelled to testify as a witness in the al Nashiri case. I am shocked that Obama’s friend and vital US partner in the WOT wouldn’t voluntarily want to aid the US judicial system. Apparently Saleh was the one who supplied much of the information directly to the US about al Nashiri, as well as giving him sanctuary after the attack. But it begs the question: when did Saleh learn of the plot. It must have been “after” because the US wouldn’t have spent the last decade supporting a dictator while knowing he was complicit in a terror attack against the US military.

Boston Herald: MIAMI — Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh is in the United States with full diplomatic immunity, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s legal adviser has written the Pentagon, and should not be compelled to provide sworn testimony for the Guantanamo war court. (Read on …)

And other oddities:

The latest news on Gitmo detainee Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, in US custody since 2002, is that the Military Commission can not confirmthat he will be released if found not guilty. Its not in the Military Commission’s jurisdiction to make those kind of pledges. Considering Nashiri was water boarded, its questionable if any of his statements will be allowed at trial, but prosecutors are confident that there is enough other evidence for a conviction.

Al Nashiri is charged with aiding the al Qaeda attack on the USS Cole in Aden port in 2000. The bombing killed 17 US service members and severely wounded dozens more. Al Nashiri selected the targets, the timing and coordinated the operatives. However, unexplored for a decade is the level of complicity by top Yemeni government officials and the failure of US intelligence to get a warning to the ship.

Prior to the attack on the USS Cole, Yemen’s then Interior Minister Hussain Arab issued al Nashiri a travel pass that enabled him to pass Yemen’s many internal checkpoints without search or question in the months preceding the terror attack. Al Nashiri also had a weapons permit issued by the Interior Ministry. These official documents were presented in Yemeni court during the 2005 trials of other conspirators.

In an interesting coincidence, Yemeni President Saleh ordered several top officials, including Interior Minister Arab, to travel from the capital Sana’a to Aden the night before the USS Cole was bombed there.

Saleh denied that Yemen was notified of the impending arrival of the warship. According to Centcom commander, General Zinni, in Congressional testimony, US naval officials followed the standard procedures for refueling including a two week advance notification to the host port.

It was also around two weeks prior to the attack that the military data mining group Able Danger and separately DOD analyst Kie Fallis picked up intel streams about an impending attack. Both made several attempts to obtain authorization to issue official warnings to no avail.

Kie Fallis quit the day of the Cole bombing. Able Danger’s Anthony Shaffer’s information never made it into the 9/11 report, although he tried. DOD later revoked Shaffer’s health insurance and forced him out over a “stolen” pen that he reported taking as a souvenir as a teen.

The NSA had the “Yemen hub” (a phone line in Yemen used by al Qaeda operatives for calls to and from bin Laden and others) under heavy surveillance for over a year prior to the Cole bombing, and for about a year after. There was a satellite trained on the house in Sanaa 24/7. Oddly, the NSA never learned of or reported on the USS Cole plot.

The CIA withheld information from the FBI about an al Qaeda summit, a high level meeting in Malaysia in January 2000, at which both the Cole and 9/11 were discussed. (See former federal investigator Ali Soufan’s excellent book, The Black Banners for more.)

Yemeni officials failed to cooperate with Soufan and other FBI agents in Yemen investigating the bombing. Some like the head of Yemen’s Political Security Organization in Aden, Hussain al Ansi, engaged in active misdirection and stonewalling.

Ten terrorists awaiting trial for the Cole attack escaped Yemeni prison in 2002 and after surrendering, their trials resulted in sentences of five to ten years. Most of escaped prison again in 2006. By 2008, all those convicted in the attack had their sentences commuted and were free. Al Nashiri, in US custody, was sentenced to death in Yemen in absencia in 2005.

The Jurist reports the Yemeni government sheltered (and lied for) al Nashiri after the bombing. The Congressional Research Service details the Cole bombers’ releases and notes that, according to the Washington Post, Al Nashiri had spent several months before his capture under “high-level protection” by the Yemeni government.

After the USS Cole attack, Interior Minister Arab was transferred, appointed by Yemeni President Saleh to the Shura Council. Arab resigned and joined the Pro-Revolutionary Military Council in March 2011.

Previous: (2007) The USS Cole Bombing in Yemen: What We Know Today

Related: Defense argues US was not at war in 2000, thus the Military Commission does not have jurisdiction.

WH

confronting both challenges, we will look chiefly to our partners in the region—Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Yemen, and others—to take the lead, with U.S. support and assistance. Our CT efforts in the Arabian Peninsula are part of our overall strategy for the region that includes other objectives such as promoting responsive governance and respect for the rights of citizens, which will reduce al-Qa‘ida’s resonance and relevancy. (Read on …)

Yes Nashiri did first meet bin Laden in 1996.

Chicago Tribune: According to the allegations against Nashiri, he met Osama bin Laden in 1996 and joined Al Qaeda two years later. In the fall of 2000, he allegedly recruited others to pilot a small boat filled with bombs into the Cole, setting off an explosion in a Yemeni port, killing 17 U.S. sailors and leaving a 40-foot hole in the ship.

Nashiri, a Saudi, was captured more than a year later, and “admitted he assisted with the plot,” according to the government allegations. He was taken to Guantanamo Bay, one of 779 captives who have been detained there at one time or another. (Read on …)

1- Is it the Booz Hamiltons of the world that are feeding the US wrong information because they are so heavily invested in the ruling structure?

2- Is the US afraid that when President Saleh comes to trial for war crimes in Saada that the extent of the US knowledge and support of the civilian slaughter will be clear?

3- Is the US afraid of what the accounting of the government budget will show?

4- Is there a fundamental racism that is impacting US policy?

5- Is it that the US was well aware of President Saleh’s false flag operations targeting foreign tourists and officials etc?

6- Is it that the US knew for years, for sure, that the Saleh regime was complicit in the USS Cole bombing and still continued to work with him?

7- Are they just so unimaginative that they can’t figure out what to do when Saleh and all his relatives leave?

8- Too busy with Libya? If AQAP is the leading threat to the US, how can there be no post-Saleh planning? Or was that just a deliberate slap in the face to the protesters?

9- I’m sure the securocrats are all cranky because their personal efforts over the last year, and the investment of time and money in the counter-terror units, will be wiped out. But the US’s absolute rejection of an authentic transition of power in Yemen can’t simply be bureaucratic inertia when the US got over it in Egypt. (But then again the military assumed power in Egypt, whereas in Yemen, the demand is for a civilian regime.) Over the last two months, the US belittled democratic efforts, overlooked civilian massacres and overtly supported Saleh at every opportunity and in every statement. Now the US is actively obstructing the people’s will by lobbying for retention of aspects of the ruling family (Yahya and Prince Ahmed).

To make a blunder this big for this long, there has to be something more to it than simply that the US experts are out of touch or misguided. It is crystal clear that the US policy and attitude will consolidate, entrench and empower al Qaeda in Yemen for years to come. The blowback is going to be a bitch for the US. I’m not even factoring in the impact of the US stance on the lives and future of 23 million Yemenis, that’s a whole other topic. At this point, the pooch is so screwed that its dead. The US is in the process of radicalizing the protest movement.

WASHINGTON — The first captive at the U.S. Naval Base on Guantanamo Bay to be charged in a military tribunal during the Obama presidency is expected to be one of the prison’s most notorious inmates — Abd al-Rahim Al-Nashiri, the alleged mastermind of the 2000 USS Cole bombing that killed 17 sailors. (Read on …)

Al Fifi was arrested in Abyan on September 4. At least he didnt have a bomb up his butt like the last AQAP who surrendered to the Saudis. Our earlier post on al Fayfi is here. More at Naba.

SABA: Wanted Saudi surrenders to authorities

RIYADH, Oct. 15 (Saba)- A former Guantanamo prisoner who later joined Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), has repented and given himself up to the Saudi security authorities. In a statement issued on Friday, the spokesman of the Saudi Interior Ministry said that the wanted Saudi national Jabir Bin-Jubran Bin-Ali al-Fayfi has surrendered to his country’s authorities. The Saudi official added that al-Fayfi’s return to Saudi Arabia was coordinated with the security authorities in Yemen.

Without comment

AFP: “My government also recognizes that security cooperation alone will not achieve our goal of defeating violent extremism, and we understand the complexity of challenges in Yemen,” said Feierstein. “Moving forward on the national dialogue process, combating corruption, instituting necessary economic reforms, and empowering women to contribute to family well-being and national progress are all essential steps to ensuring a more secure future for Yemen,” he said.

(Read on …)

and promises to be good! Of course if he’s going to “serve the country,” he can’t stay in jail. There are/were a lot of this group in Sa’ada. Update: Yemen Times Released from Gitmo to Yemen in Dec. 2006: Esam Hamid Al-Jaefi, Ali Hussain Al-Tais, Mohammed Ahmed Al-Asadi, Tawfiq Al-Murwai and Muhassen Al-Asskari.

Lahj News Net: A security source said an official former detainee at Guantanamo Bay and a member of Al Qaeda (Ali Hussein al Tais) surrendered to security forces and expressed regret and remorse to the period spent in the ranks of al Qaeda and expressed its readiness to cooperate all that would serve the country and maintaining security and stability, and called on other items that were deceived by the organization to follow in the delivery of the same security services and to renounce violence and integration into society and contribute to nation-building process. (Read on …)

Its not a surprise the six detainees transferred from Gitmo to Yemen were released within a week of their return to Yemen, and its no surprise that the Saleh government in Yemen lied to the US with a promise of indefinite detention. What’s shocking is that anyone on the US side actually believed them to start with. (Read on …)

DOJ: Six Yemeni detainees, Jamal Muhammad Alawi Mari, Farouq Ali Ahmed, Ayman Saeed Abdullah Batarfi, Muhammaed Yasir Ahmed Taher, Fayad Yahya Ahmed al Rami and Riyad Atiq Ali Abdu al Haf, were transferred to the Government of Yemen.

SABA WASHINGTON, Dec.20 (Saba) – The U.S. authorities has sent six Yemeni detainees held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay to Yemen.
(Read on …)

Judge al Hittar’s rehab program never disputed the Takfirist, Jihad ideology, only that Saleh’s government was a legitimate target of it.

The Hill reports that 26 Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo will return to Yemen. Meanwhile other detainees will come to New York for trial in a federal court but USS Cole bomber Nashiri will have a military trial. Others deemed too dangerous to release will remain at Guantamo. Ramzi Binalshibh as a high value detainees in the 9/11 attacks will face trial in New York federal court as will Walid Bin Attash, USS Cole plotter.

WaPo Khalid Sheik Mohammed — the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks — and four co-defendants will be tried in federal court in New York instead of a military commission, a federal official said early Friday.

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, accused of orchestrating the bombing of the USS Cole when it was docked off the coast of Yemen in 2000, will be tried at a military commission, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decisions have not yet been formally announced by the Department of Justice…

Administration officials say they expect that up to 40 of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay will ultimately be tried in either federal court or military commissions — possibly including federal courts in the District or Alexandria. Approximately 90 others have been cleared for repatriation or resettlement in a third country, according to an administration official…

That leaves up to 75 individuals remaining at Guantanamo who could continue to be held under the laws of war because they are deemed too dangerous to release but cannot be prosecuted because of evidentiary issues and limits on the use of classified material.

Out of about 100 Yemeni detainees, if 26 return and a few go to federal court, they’ll still be a number held at Gitmo after this latest round of shuffling.

Al Hilah was a high ranking PSO official working directly for President Saleh, tasked with implanting Afghan Arabs and other al Qaeda around the world with false passports, making his recent statement from Gitmo is very interesting.

The Star: The Pentagon claims the former politician and businessman was a key facilitator in Yemen for shuttling Al Qaeda fighters to Afghanistan. (Read on …)

Miami Herald

Even as the White House left doubt on whether it would meet its own prison camps closure deadline, the Obama administration said Saturday it had freed three detainees from Guantánamo — one by order of a federal judge to Yemen, two others for new lives in Ireland.

A Justice Department statement said Yemeni Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed, 26, was sent to his homeland in compliance with a May 4 federal court order.

In Ahmed’s case, U.S. Judge Gladys Kessler ruled in May that the government’s mosaic of evidence was insufficient to defend its indefinite detention of the long-held captive — either on grounds he fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan or was in league with al Qaeda in Pakistan.

The young Yemeni was captured in a large-scale March 2002 Pakistani raid on an alleged al Qaeda guest house in that netted the CIA alleged arch-terrorist Abu Zubaydah and other alleged war criminals now held at the prison camps in southeast Cuba.

Its a very odd story all in all.

الإثنين 03 أغسطس-آب 2009 / Radhia Khairan-Edit: Jane Novak
HOOD Online

In his second call home in a matter of months, Abdulsalam al Hilah, a Yemeni detainee incarcerated at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, said he survived an assassination attempt three weeks ago.

During the call to his family in Yemen last month, Mr. al Hilah received the news of the death of his mother and two young sons. The boys were killed in April 2009 just two days after Mr. al Hilah’s last call home when a grenade accidentally exploded. (Read on …)

This is such a bizarre story, now available in English. President Saleh’s personal intermediary to the Afghan Arabs and foreign resettlement coordinator, a top intelligence official in the PSO, al Hilal had foreknowledge of 9/11 and was recorded in Italy talking about the attack in New York before it happened.

After al Hillal called Yemen from Gitmo a few weeks ago, his two young sons were killed in a grenade accident. Now he says he was subject to an assassination attempt inside Gitmo. One would assume it was another of the prisoners who tried to kill him, if theres any validity to the claim; people tend to become mentally unstable after years of indefinite confinement.

Sahwa Net – A Yemeni Guantanamo detainee Abdul-Salam al-Hilah has said he survived an assassination attempt in his cell three weeks ago.

In a phone call with his family on Thursday, he affirmed that he was subjected to an assassination attempt after receiving the death news of his two sons, mother and brother.

The last suicide was by a Yemeni prisoner under a suicide watch according to MSNBC

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – A Guantanamo detainee whose death has been blamed on suicide apparently died of asphyxiation, a Yemeni official said Saturday.

The preliminary conclusion, which suggests the prisoner strangled himself, offers the first details about the death of Mohammad Ahmed Abdullah Saleh Al Hanashi, who was found unresponsive inside a psychiatric ward.

The disclosure also raises questions about how a prisoner could have choked himself to death inside the closely watched ward.

He said the Americans had decided to return in coffins .. عبد السلام الحيلة في اتصال بأسرته: تعرضت لمحاولة اغتيال داخل سجن جوانتنامو Abdel-Salam trick in contact with his family: the assassination attempt in the Guantanamo Bay prison
31/07/2009 31/07/2009
موسى النمراني، نيوزيمن: Musa Alnmrani, NewsYemen:

في أول اتصال هاتفي له بعد علمه بمقتل نجليه ووفاة والدته قال المعتقل اليمني في جوانتنامو عبد السلام الحيلة، أنه تعرض لمحاولة اغتيال قبل ثلاثة أسابيع . In the first telephone call to him after learning the death of his sons and his mother’s death and said the Yemeni detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Abdul Salam trick, that he was subjected to an assassination attempt three weeks ago. (Read on …)

al Qirby- the failure to return the prisoners to Yemen is because Yemen’s refusal to agree to US conditions, Iraq is thinking and no answer from Pakistan.

Almotamar.net – Yemen’s foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi has told the parliament on Wednesday that not moving 98 Yemeni detainees out of Guantanamo by the United States of America was attributed to Yemen’s refusal of the American conditions, which, if they were accepted, he said the government would have faced questioning by the MPs. (Read on …)

Truth to power:

Washington, DC – Kirk S. Lippold, Former USS Cole Commander and Senior Military Fellow at Military Families United, released the following statement concerning the recently reported news that the Obama Administration is nearing a deal to send a considerable portion of the estimated 100 Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay to Saudi “terrorist rehabilitation centers.”

“The impact of turning Yemeni detainees over to either Saudi Arabia or Yemen is an unacceptable compromise to our national security. Saudi Arabia has proven ineffective in rehabilitating terrorists and Yemen has consistently proven to be an untrustworthy and unreliable partner in the war on terror.

Transferring Yemeni detainees to Saudi Arabia will inevitably lead to more terrorists on the battlefield. It will endanger the lives of our military for a second time. Currently, one in seven former GITMO detainees has rejoined the fight. If President Obama transfers these detainees to Saudi Arabia or Yemen, he is putting the national security interests of the United States second to nations that still form the cradle of al Qaeda recruiting efforts and their campaign of terror. In addition, this transfer says to our troops and their families that the campaign promise to close GITMO is more important than their safety and their lives.

The lenient treatment of those who attacked USS Cole is the starkest evidence of the Yemeni government’s complicity in supporting those who carried out the attack. The lead co-conspirator, al Badawi, is currently held in minimal security, if in jail at all. The government’s joke of a trial, where he received the death penalty and then escaped twice before being recaptured, demonstrates their inability to even wage the most basic war tactics against al Qaeda. The USS Cole families and many of America’s military families have already paid too dear a price in the war on terror. With each detainee transfer, it becomes more and more evident that the President’s priorities do not lie with our men and women in uniform and those who bear the burden and the sacrifice of the War on Terror – the families.”