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.

Memri: Indicted USS Cole Bomber Fahd Al-Quso Strongly Denies Association with Yemeni Regime

The September 19, 2011 issue of the London-based daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi featured an interview with Fahed Al-Quso, a senior operative of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), wanted by the US for involvement in the bombing of the USS Cole. Al-Quso discusses the situation in Yemen, as well as the ongoing clashes in the south of the country between government forces and a previously unknown jihad group called “Ansar Al-Shari’a,” supposedly linked to Al-Qaeda.

Here Brennan lies about civilian casualties in Pakistan but also in Yemen: TN: C.I.A. Is Disputed on Civilian Toll in Drone Strikes, “Fortunately, for more than a year, due to our discretion and precision, the U.S. government has not found credible evidence of collateral deaths resulting from U.S. counterterrorism operations outside of Afghanistan or Iraq, and we will continue to do our best to keep it that way,” Mr. Brennan said.

Its the same type of bold mis-characterization as when General Patraeus, now the head of the CIA, said with a straight face there were no civilians casualties in the ‘09 airstrike in Abyan, because the women and children were related to the terrorists or had sold them vegetables, making them guilty of providing material support. The fact that the poor dead villagers had appealed to local authorities for help in expelling al Qaeda weeks before has no impact on their “lawful enemy” status.

Now certainly these fanatics should be thoroughly condemned for bringing their children to training camps and sheltering among civilians. But no six year old is a terrorist.

And this repugnant spin is similar to US Department of Defense statements that the US found no irrefutable evidence that the US trained counter-terror forces have committed any atrocities in Yemen. Its the other members of the Republican Guard and other divisions that receive US funds I guess who shot all the protesters.

Ammar Saleh, head of the National Security, just bought a three million dollar palace in Sanaa–with cash. I guess he found the money on the street or in a taxi. Your tax dollars at work, worse yet, beyond the scope of congressional oversight.

As an aside and to save the link, some lefty site is carrying Richard Clark’s uncorroborated accusation that the top level of the CIA withheld info on al Midhar and al Hamzi’s presence in the US from the rest of the gov’t. The CIA insists it was only a few low level analysts who knew they were here. The article fails to address the issue of the Yemen Hub, a phone line monitored by the NSA for the CIA since 1996, ie-prior to and after both the 1998 embassy attacks and the USS Cole bombing. The USS Cole bombers called the hub several times in planning the attack; Midhar and Hamzi called the monitored number several times from the US as well. The number was under such heavy surveillance that there was a satellite dedicated to recording visitors to the house.

HCG: As outlined in the Yemen Hub category, the number was under heavy surveillance by the US. It was al-Qaeda’s operations centre and had been integral in the embassy bombings, when it received calls from both the bombers in Africa and bin Laden in Afghanistan. Intercepts of the calls enabled the FBI to map al-Qaeda’s global network (except the 9/11 hijackers in the US, whose location the NSA failed to communicate). According to a US investigator, the hub number was used by the bombers to “put everything together” before the Cole bombing.

There are two simple questions: If the NSA was listening in on the bombers putting everything together before the Cole attack, why was it not prevented? Second, why was the hub not shut down after the Cole attack? The policy of allowing the hub to operate to map al-Qaeda was proved to be a failure by the Cole bombing, as no amount of intelligence was worth the lives of the dead sailors, so the people who ran the hub should have been arrested, as were some of the other Cole bombers in Yemen, like Fahad al-Quso.

Fahd al Quso, who was ultimately given a ten year sentence, was released by Saleh’s govt in May 2007, after three years. The release was met by weak protestations from the USG and outrage by the sailors’ families. By 2010 al Quso, had released an AQAP vid threatening the US, and was placed on the Freds MWT list. Several drone strikes have targeted al Quso since 2009.

Meanwhile the US holds Yemen’s democratic process hostage by insisting on the GCC plan, rejected by Salah, the GPC, the JMP and the demonstrators, in order to implement cosmetic changes to a deeply dysfunctional system:

Victoria Nuland, a spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department, said democratic processes in Yemen shouldn’t be “held hostage” while the president weighs his options.

“Our view is that Yemen needs to move in a democratic direction along the lines of the GCC report,” she said. “How that happens is up to the Yemeni people but it’s got to happen.” Officials in Saleh’s ruling General People’s Congress maintain he is the legitimate leader until the country has presidential elections. ( UPI)

Massive protests on the streets today. Check News of the Yemen Revolution to get the Youtube URLs: https://www.facebook.com/EngYemenNews and Yemen Rights Monitor for all the recent updates, military conflicts and political statements: http://yemenrightsmonitor.blogspot.com/. The day is themed, “Victorious God Willing” Friday and nation-wide protests reject Saleh and GCC plan, and call for the quick announcement of a national council. The protests condemn crimes in Taiz, Arhab, and Abyan.

These vids are from yesterday:

Taiz

al Beidah

Hodiedah

http://yemenpost.net/Detail123456789.aspx?ID=3&SubID=3901

Saleh 8/11

The (pdf) motion makes the point that Nashiri’s lawyers are unable to travel to Yemen to investigate exculpatory evidence and mitigating circumstances.

There is a strong circumstantial case that the Saleh regime, or top elements of it, had foreknowledge of the attack and furthermore, facilitated the murder of 17 US service members.

Saleh’s Interior Minister Hussain Arab issued the travel documents that afforded Nashiri free passage prior to and after the attack, as well as weapons permits. (Arab was later appointed to the Shura Council and remained a Major General in the army until he resigned a few months ago.) Saleh sent several top Yemeni officials to Port Aden the evening prior to the terror attack. The Saleh regime obstructed the US investigation. Nashiri was sheltered in Yemen immediately after the bombing with the knowledge of government officials. All those tried and convicted in Yemen for the terror attack were released years early, including al Quso and al Badawi, per a deal with Saleh. There are also witnesses in Yemen who say Nashiri is “wearing a shirt to big,” and culprits (in the government) were never charged.

Its not news. Why Bush (and DOD) gave Saleh a pass on the USS Cole attack, and why Obama called him “a friend” a few months ago, is beyond me. Saleh is no friend to the US. For more on the miscarriage of justice, for the victims not their murderers, see my friend Gary Swenchonis Sr.

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.

AQAP. The United States faces a sustained threat from Yemen-based AQAP, which has shown the intent and capability to plan attacks against the U.S. Homeland and U.S. partners. Yemen is struggling to contain AQAP amidst an unprecedented confluence of security, political, and economic challenges. Yemen’s instability has direct implications for the United States. Even as we work to support Yemen’s stability and the aspirations of the Yemeni people, the defeat of AQAP will remain our CT priority in the region, and we will continue to leverage and strengthen our partnerships to achieve this end.
Our CT efforts in Yemen are embedded in a broader effort to stabilize the country and prevent state failure; such a scenario would have significant adverse implications for the United States and the region. The United States is working with regional and international partners to advance a number of political and economic development initiatives that address the underlying conditions that allow Yemen to serve as a safehaven for AQAP. These broader efforts complement those CT initiatives that are focused on building the capacity of Yemeni security services so they are able eventually to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat AQAP with only limited U.S. involvement.

Brennan vowed the ‘utter destruction’ of Al-Qaeda as he unveiled new plans June 29, focusing on the terror group’s ability to inspire Americans to carry out domestic attacks.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2011/0629/US-unveils-new-counterterrorism-strategy-three-key-parts

The White House unveiled a new counterterrorism strategy Wednesday that homes in on what it says is a declining but still dangerous Al Qaeda – and that for the first time makes a priority of the threat posed by adherents of Al Qaeda’s extremist ideology inside the US.

“This is the first counterterrorism strategy that focuses on the ability of Al Qaeda and its networks to inspire people in the United States to attack us from within,” said John Brennan, President Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, in a speech Wednesday in Washington.

IN PICTURES: American Jihadis

The new counterterrorism strategy replaces one from 2006 and calls for pursuing with what Mr. Brennan called “laser focus” the approach that the Obama administration has already been taking. This approach, which the administration says has decimated Al Qaeda’s power, reach, and appeal, includes the following components:

• A zeroing in on the organization’s senior leaders.

• Enhanced cooperation with allies and partners to defeat the extremist scourge.

• A sustained effort to restore America’s image and leadership in the world.

Elaborating on each of these points, Brennan said that, first of all, Al Qaeda’s leadership ranks have been seriously depleted and its recruiting abilities weakened.

“All told, over the past 2-1/2 years, virtually every major Al Qaeda affiliate has lost its key leader or operational commander,” he said – adding that the operation in May resulting in the death of Osama bin Laden was “our biggest blow against Al Qaeda yet.”

Second, he said, the US will continue to deepen the kind of intelligence cooperation that was exemplified by Saudi Arabia’s tip-off to US intelligence officials last October about explosive devices, which Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had managed to introduce to planes headed for the US.

Brennan, who at one point in a long CIA career was station chief in Saudi Arabia, said in a question-and-answer session following his speech that the Saudi kingdom was now “one of the best counterterrorism partners that the US has.”

He said he hoped Pakistan – which he described as “one of our most vital counterterrorism partners” – will one day realize, as Saudi Arabia did after a series of internal attacks in 2003, that “this really is a war” that threatens more than US interests.

Third, Brennan said, efforts under Mr. Obama to improve America’s image abroad and enhance diplomatic and people-to-people relations were yielding results – even as Al Qaeda’s image and appeal among Muslims are waning.

He cited the Arab Spring, which he said has “left Al Qaeda and its ilk on the sidelines.” For decades, terrorist groups like Al Qaeda “have preached that the only way to effect change is through violence,” Brennan said, adding, “Now that claim has been thoroughly repudiated, and it has been repudiated by ordinary citizens, in Tunisia and Egypt and beyond.”

As upbeat as those words were, the White House counterterrorism chief sounded a cautious note in emphasizing that Al Qaeda still has an ability to attract adherents.

The new strategy will focus on such adherents inside the US, whom Brennan described as “individuals, sometimes with little or no direct physical contact with Al Qaeda, who have succumbed to its hateful ideology.”

Among the examples Brennan gave was the November 2009 Fort Hood shooting rampage, allegedly carried out by an Army major shouting “God is great” in Arabic.

A key component of Obama’s counterterrorism strategy will be a renewed emphasis on building “strong partnerships between government and communities here at home, including Muslim and Arab-American” communities, said Brennan, who chose Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies to make his remarks.

Announcing the administration’s intention to introduce a new “partnering” effort, Brennan said, “A key tenet of this approach is that when it comes to protecting our country, Muslim-Americans are not part of the problem; they’re part of the solution.”

In another bit of news, Brennan said the new strategy marks the official end of the government using the term “global war on terror.” In his speech, he said defeating Al Qaeda “does not require a global war, but it does require a focus on specific regions,” from South Asia to Yemen and Somalia and the Maghreb.

Later, the counterterrorism chief corrected a student’s phrasing of a question, saying, “We intentionally do not use ‘global war on terror’: We’re in a war with Al Qaeda.”

terrorism as an instrument of policy

http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/07/01/counterterrorism_what_the_new_white_house_strategy_document_leaves_out

The Obama administration rolled out the unclassified version of its long-awaited counterterrorism strategy document on Wednesday.

Put simply, this is a war plan against al Qaeda. The document is al Qaeda-centric to the point of being al Qaeda-obsessed. What is striking about the strategy is not so much what it says about al Qaeda or its repeated mentions of killing Osama bin Laden (5 of them), but what it left out about counterterrorism more broadly:

Terrorists who aren’t AQ: The document mentions “other terrorist concerns requiring focus and attention” such as Hamas, Hizballah, the FARC, and Lashkar-e-Taiba. However, the document does not address these groups in a substantive way.

State-sponsors of terror: While recognizing that some states (Iran and Syria) support terrorist organizations, the strategy does not spell out what this means for broader foreign policy towards these countries. Pakistan is notably absent from this list despite its established ties to the Haqqani Network, Afghan Taliban, and Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Not to mention all our soldiers killed in Iraq as a result of the well managed pipeline that starts in Yemen. All the US whining about Syria rings hollow when there was little pressure on Saleh to close the spigot. The years of quietness in Yemen (2002-2007) was not a result of US CT successes, as some have postulated, but rather the result of an explicit agreement between al Qaeda and Saleh. Furthermore, Saleh continues to prove safe harbor. US policy in Yemen is overtly endangering US security and American (and Yemeni) lives.

In this interview, Arab says Saleh handed over Zanzibar to al Qaeda, sacrificing low level Yemeni troops to the theatrics on the international stage. The US is pretending to fall for the AQ threat that Saleh is producing because its convenient.

Al Masdar: For his part, accused the former Yemeni Interior Minister Hussein Mohammed Arab regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh to “support Al-Qaeda” cross “handed over” a number of cities in Abyan, which led to the control of the organization in control in Zanzibar.

The Arabs said to Agence France Presse that Al-Qaeda “did not launch any attack on Zanzibar and all what happened was carried out by the process of handing over security leaders in Zanzibar to armed groups, leaving scores of poor soldiers to their fate.”

He added that “President Saleh’s regime wants to dump the southern provinces in the mess by allowing the armed groups that claim affiliation to al Qaeda,” and called the sons of the southern provinces to “confront the armed groups that claim to follow the rule is valid.

Also al Fahdli dishes on Saleh and Abyan via al Jazeera. A summary kindly provided by a viewer:

After he described the scene as an eye witness and a tribal chief in Abyan and insulting the regime ,namely Ali saleh for his bad and aggressive attempts to explode the situation ,, He said ” Ali saleh called me yesterday night and told that the opposition parties are saying that you ‘Tariq’ are the chief of the AQ in Abyian and you re that who stand behind those military troops and milicious , so ,he offered me to be the governor of the governorate and to give me a very big prosperties if i joined him and adabted his aggresive plans ,Tairq concluded his talk by saying that ” i wish Ali saleh is now watching and i m sure he is ” …!

More on Tariq’s interviews at al Masdar:

Sheikh Tareq al-Fadhli said that dozens of civilians had been killed and wounded in the bombing of the military forces of the city of Zanzibar, the capital of Abyan province, south of Yemen, after the imposition of control by the militants during the past two days.

Fadhli said in an interview to Al Jazeera that he had made yesterday’s mediation efforts between the leaders of the Brigade 25 Mika and insurgents, but stresses the parties to make it stop its efforts yesterday, pointing out that the army shelled the city’s long and heavy shelling of his house.

He said five were killed and dozens wounded, fell after a Sunday afternoon in the bombing.

Fadhli said that the bodies lying in the streets while houses were destroyed on the heads of their inhabitants are still bodies under the rubble, he said, that basic services were cut, and described the situation as “tragic” and the bombing as “brutal and barbaric”.

Fadhli revealed that he refused an offer from President Ali Abdullah Saleh for his appointment as governor of Abyan province after the collapse of the security situation.

He said in an interview with BBC television that the President called him and told him, “Hey Tariq You are a champion and you Schmidt and I am launching resolution hire you governor of Abyan province, so that it cleared the show and liquidation,” he said in another interview to Al Jazeera, “he said to me the greatness of the tongue that the opposition accuse me of I I-Qaeda leader .. let me burned them, “pointing out that he rejected this offer and preferred to be a mediator, and said he was surprised that after the bombing of his home and he and his family homeless for the time being, said.

And on the identity of the gunmen, Fadhli said “there are armed groups of various shapes and colors .. the fact that we could not distinguish them .. see the young gunmen come from all areas of power and angry at the system, and the indiscriminate shelling of the city.

There’s really not much else to say. Obama’s only reference to Yemen in the big speech was to call Saleh a friend and urge he carries out the transfer of power deal which Saleh rejected yesterday. One sentence on Yemen in a one hour speech, thats it.

What a slap in the face to the millions of Yemeni protesters. The speech was also badly structured in that it set up expectations. Obama started out praising the Tunisians lavishly, then the Egyptians, and then promised Tunisia and Egypt oodles of money, then the Palestinians got half of Israel. But when it was Yemen’s turn, Obama didn’t even acknowledge the Yemeni protesters at all, no moral support, not even the slightest nod. Maybe the brain surgeons at the State Department and military think they can demoralize the protest movement into giving up. Its not going to happen.

When Obama called state atrocities in southern Yemen “an internal affair” in 2009, Saleh cut the phone lines within 48 hours and started bombing, not just shooting but bombing as well.

What a hypocrite this president is. He can spill generalized platitudes about principles but unconditional support for a mass murderer is pretty hard to ignore. The US is trying to hide its acquiescence, if not complicity in Saleh’s crimes for a decade by demanding Saleh get immunity from prosecution. Any accounting of Saleh will show the US in quite a poor light.

Obama is still talking: “The US is standing squarely on the side of those reaching for their rights.” Just STFU already. Obama spent more time talking about the aspirations of the Iranian people who aren’t even currently protesting. Its such a bad policy, not just for Yemenis but for short, mid and long term US interests, especially on the counter-terror front. There’s going to be a lot of blood now that Saleh has a free hand, rivers will flow. The only question is where and when.

This is just sad:

AP: In his speech Thursday on American policy in the Arab world, Obama referred to Yemen directly. He said, “President Saleh needs to follow through on his commitment to transfer power.”

Tens of thousands of Yemenis watched the speech on a giant screen in the public square in the capital of Sanaa that has been the focus of the protest movement.

When Obama mentioned Yemen, people chanted, “The people want to topple the regime” — the rallying cry made famous in the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings that inspired the protests in Yemen and elsewhere.

Update: The joke of the day, or the second joke of the day actually: CNN, “President Saleh has agreed to (resign) definitively and the decision was made just hours ago. Now, they’re just discussing the time and location of the signing,” according to the official, who has asked not to be named.

If Obama agreed to let Saleh leave with dignity, of his own volition, then he got suckered. Saleh is going to recycle the 2006 speech when, after he promised to not to run for president again, Saleh was tearfully overwhelmed by popular demands to stay and said:

“I am responding to this crowd of people, I am responding to the tears of kids, old men and women. I do not want any advantages from the authority, but I respond to my nation’s desire, who came to this place,” Saleh said.

He added, “We are all on the ark, to go to the rescue, safe, stable, freedom, and democracy beach. ..I trust you to stay behind me as well as you did in the past. The future is not spread of flowers. I’ll be a honest soldier for you.”

This is pretty much what Saleh is going to say on Unity Day, Sunday, when he reverses his decision (for the eight time) to stand down in the face of the protest movement. We can expect large (paid) crowds demanding Saleh stay and the ruling party to reject his resignation. Dollars to donuts. Maybe he’ll announce he’s going Sunday and then the next week some crisis or terrorist attack will force him to stay to oversee the country in its time of need. But he’s Obama’s friend, so the USG will be happy.

WAPO: Capital charges brought against Guantanamo detainee Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in USS Cole attack

U.S. military prosecutors on Wednesday charged one of the most prominent detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in a death penalty case that could prove to be a major test of the nation’s revised system of military commissions.

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, one of 15 high-value detainees at the U.S. military prison, was charged with murder, terrorism and other violations of the laws of war in connection with an October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen.

The military alleges that Nashiri was “in charge of the planning and preparation” of the attack, in which a small boat carrying two suicide bombers pulled alongside the USS Cole and detonated, ripping a 30-by-30-foot hole in the Navy destroyer and killing 17 American sailors.

The case is the first capital military tribunal to be announced under President Obama, whose administration recently lifted a ban on new trials at Guantanamo Bay. Although the administration said this month that it would try Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four co-defendants in a military commission, prosecutors have not sworn charges or confirmed that they will seek the death penalty.

Nashiri, 46, a Saudi citizen of Yemeni descent, has been in U.S. custody since 2002 and at Guantanamo Bay since 2006. After his capture in the United Arab Emirates, he was held overseas at secret CIA prisons, where he was waterboarded and subject to mock executions in which agency operatives separately held a power drill and a gun to his head, according to a report by the CIA inspector general and other government documents.

Nashiri said at a 2007 military hearing that he confessed to involvement in the Cole bombing only because he was tortured.

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.

Then Nashiri’s lawyers contended that he had been deprived of sleep and tormented with sensory deprivation. An unidentified associate professor of medicine at Boston University, who specializes in human rights and refugee health, testified about “torturous treatment” and “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.”

Guardian pages 15-17

ChiTrib” The documents also include new details about Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, the alleged mastermind of the 2000 attack on the U.S. destroyer Cole off the coast of Yemen that killed 17 American sailors.

The documents state that Nashiri, who last week became the first detainee to be charged at Guantanamo by the Obama administration, met with Bin Laden in Afghanistan to discuss who would carry out the ship bombing. Nashiri also ordered the bombers to attack the first U.S. ship that stopped in the port of Aden, which turned out to be the Cole two weeks later.

WaPo

In December, al-Qaeda’s top lieutenants gathered in Zormat. They included Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks; Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged planner of the USS Cole attack; and Abu Faraj al-Libbi, a key facilitator for bin Laden.

The place was teeming with fighters who were awaiting for al-Qaeda to return their passports so they could flee across the border to Pakistan…Nashiri reported that while at Zormat he was approached by two Saudi nationals who wanted to strike U.S. and Israeli targets in Morocco. Nashiri said he had been considering an operation in the Strait of Gibraltar and thought that the British military base there, which he had seen in a documentary, would be a good target.

Nashiri’s willingness to approve a plot on his own was later the source of some tension within the organization, particularly with Mohammed….Nashiri separately complained that he was being pushed by bin Laden to continue planning aggressive operations against U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf region without much regard for his security.

It was an unusual complaint for someone who was so committed to al-Qaeda. According to documents, to avoid the distraction of women, he “reportedly received injections to promote impotence and recommended the injections to others so more time could be spent on the jihad.” — Gradually, Mohammed and the other operatives were picked off by Pakistanis working with the CIA and the FBI. When Ramzi Binalshibh, a key liaison between the Sept. 11 hijackers and al-Qaeda, was arrested at a safe house in Karachi on the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, there was a four-hour standoff while the Yemeni and two others held knives to their own throats and threatened to kill themselves rather than be taken.

The document, titled “Matrix of Threat Indicators for Enemy Combatants,” was one of more than 700 documents released to select news agencies by WikiLeaks. The document has been published by The New York Times. On pages 16 and 17, the document lists the “Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence Directorate,” “Iranian Intelligence,” and “Yemeni Intelligence [PSO]” as “associated forces … with which al Qaeda, the al Qaeda network, or the Taliban had or has an established working, supportive, or beneficiary relationship for the achievement of common goals.”

“Through associations with these groups and organizations, a detainee may have provided support to al Qaeda or the Taliban, or engaged in hostilities against US or Coalition forces,” the document continued.

Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2011/04/gitmo_docs_link_paki.php#ixzz1KZffP4oZ

NYT: These three documents were designed to guide military intelligence interrogators and analysts at Guantánamo as they attempted to assess what detainees had done in the past and what risk they might pose in the future. The “Assessment of Afghanistan Travels” — which lists the online encyclopedia Wikipedia as one source — offers background on Afghanistan and Islam and examples of how some detainees may have been trained to resist interrogation. The two “Threat Matrix” documents were aids to gauging whether a prisoner, on release, might pose a a high, medium or low risk to American interests.

al Hilal’s page at the NYT

It can’t be that the US military bought the ‘09 reformation theory. Are they are afraid of chaos and/or Zindani? General Ali Mohsen is promising to resign and leave the country, taking care of one concern. The US investment in time and money on the CT units over the last year doesn’t have to go down the drain; someone besides Prince Ahmed and Duke Yahya can run them, so why the heavy lobbying efforts? Gates squaring off against the Yemeni people is not in the US national interest. The longer the transition takes, the higher the risk of political violence. “Al Qaeda” declared an Islamic Emirate in Ja’ar and is preventing women from the streets. Saleh’s plan is violence and chaos. The longer he sits in his chair, the more violence and chaos there will be.

Saleh is arming al Qaeda and releasing them from prison (approx 30 and approx March 8). At the same time, the Yemeni government arrested 87 and disappeared 25 citizens for protesting. There’s “no planning” for Saleh’s departure even though the Saleh regime is clearly unsustainable. Did the US embassy sit in on the negotiations for transition in Tunisia and Egypt? I can understand why some Yemenis are spinning wild theories (like the US is seeking a stronger al Qaeda in order to occupy Socotra, as an example) to explain the US position, because there’s no logical answer why the US would support the obviously guilty, dirtbag Saleh. Meanwhile the US spent $550 million in bombing Libya out of our commitment to humanitarian and democratic ideals…

Another theory, “The Yemeni opposition gave the US Embassy a full program for post-Saleh Yemen including the anti-terrorism plan. However, the US is still supporting Saleh. The matter has two possible reasons; whether Saleh gives the US many confidential privileges or Al-Qaeda is an American game and Saleh is just a player of the team.”

Another accusation: Official spokesman of the Preparatory Committee for National Dialogue, Mohammad al-Sabri said the U.S. Department of Defense has complicity of the benefit scheme to meet the people’s peaceful revolution. He considers Saleh’s spreading chaos and killings in Yemen including the death of 120 people after an explosion of a munitions factory to be the tip of the iceberg.

Another question: “The Revolutionary Youth Movement rejects any reconciliation with Saleh and calls on the international community to take a clear stance regarding his alliance with violent movements including al Qaeda.” Its a confusion that the US brought on itself by justifying support of Saleh in terms of al Qaeda. And an article News Yemen publishes a letter to Obama that brings up US corporations in Yemen (calling for a boycott) and the fact that there was no transitional plan in Egypt when the US began calling for Mubarek to go, and laments the contempt and hatred that the Obama administration is generating with its continued support of Saleh.

Also, Marib Press: Citizens in Hadramout thwart state plan to target foreign workers with IED.

Al Sahwa: Sahwa Net –Spokesman of the National Dialogue-Preparation Commission Mohammad Al-Sabri has accused the US Defence Ministry of collusion with Saleh’s regime against the peaceful protestors.

“The US Administration and some Arab countries have agreements with Saleh and think that the Yemeni people will not respect them, but, in fact, the Yemeni people will absolutely respect all agreements and conventions,” added Al-Sabri.

Although they realize that Saleh and his regime are behind all Yemen threats, instability and crises, US officials have worries about Yemen, said Al-Sabri.

In comments for Islam Online, Al-Sabri said that the Yemeni peaceful protestors across all Yemeni governorates would overthrow Saleh and his regime, indicating that change would take weeks.

Professor of political science in Sana’a University Abdullah Al-Faqeeh said Saleh’s regime decided to play Al-Qaeda card against his opponents as he threatened in a recent interview with Alarabia TV, stressing that consequences of such steps would be grave.

“It is known for all that Saleh funds Al-Qaeda and he considers al-Qaeda the best card which he will use against his foes,” added Al-Faqeeh.

For his part, the Commander of the Northwestern Area and First Armored Division Ali Mohsin Al-Ahmar affirmed that President Ali Abdullah Saleh used to exploit the threat of Al Qaeda as an excuse to stay in power.

‘I actually fear that Saleh is using it as a card in order to hang on to power and the use of violence against his own people,’ General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar told DPA. He is the top military commander in northwestern Yemen.

‘Saleh has largely contributed to the presence of terrorism in Yemen as he played with it as a political tactic,’ said al-Ahmar.

He further stressed that Al-Qaeda influence would not expand, but he stressed that Saleh might use Al-Qaeda to have political gains.