Armies of Liberation

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 …)