By Susan Cornwell
WASHINGTON, Aug 7 (Reuters) – Turmoil in Yemen and the
warnings of attacks that prompted the United States to shut
diplomatic missions across the Middle East could hinder
President Barack Obama’s plans to close Guantanamo Bay prison.
Obama’s plan to restart the repatriation of Yemeni inmates,
a large group at the prison, is coming under increasing scrutiny
because of the recent focus on the country as a hotbed of al
Qaeda activity.
A U.S. senator involved in the debate over closing
Guantanamo warned against transferring prisoners to Yemen, and
an Obama administration official acknowledged that “current
conditions will necessarily factor into that evaluation” of
whether any detainees should be sent back to Yemen.
“It’s not likely to happen” in the near future said Daniel
Green, an expert on Yemen at the Washington Institute for Near
East Policy.
The prison houses 166 detainees who were rounded up in
counter-terrorism operations since the invasion of Afghanistan
in 2001. Of those, 86 have been deemed to pose no threat to the
United States and cleared for transfer or release. Fifty-six of
those are from Yemen, and Obama was expected to begin sending
them home soon after he lifted a moratorium on transfers to
Yemen in May.
But al Qaeda’s regional wing, known as AQAP, keeps raising
its head in Yemen, causing concern for U.S. officials who fear
that released prisoners could eventually join up with Islamist
militants.
“Since it’s now well-known that Yemen-based al Qaeda is
actively plotting against us, I don’t see how the president can
honestly say any detainee should be transferred to Yemen,” said
Senator Saxby Chambliss, the ranking Republican on the Senate
Intelligence Committee.
“Sending them to countries where al Qaeda and its affiliates
operate and continue to attack our interests is not a solution,”
Chambliss said in a statement.
Al Qaeda seems to have regrouped since last year when it was
driven out of towns in southern Yemen that it had captured.
It is now resorting to hit-and-run operations against senior
officers or military installations and the government said on
Wednesday it had uncovered a plot to seize two major oil and gas
export terminals and a provincial capital in the east of the
country.
Yemen has been the main focus of concern that al Qaeda may
be planning attacks in August. One of the reasons that the
United States closed embassies across the Middle East and Africa
was intercepted communication between al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate
and al Qaeda’s top leadership abroad.
“Al Qaeda is still quite strong in Yemen … and in general,
a fair number of detainees who have been repatriated have
rejoined the fight,” said Green, of the Washington Institute for
Near East Policy.
HUNGER STRIKE EASING
Recent pressure on Obama over Guantanamo has eased slightly
as dozens of inmates have come off a hunger strike which peaked
earlier this year when more than 100 of the 166 inmates were
taking part. Now the number of hunger strikers has dropped to
55.
Obama’s promise to close Guantanamo dates back to his first
election campaign. But transfers out slowed dramatically in
recent years as Congress placed conditions on them. Repatriation
of Yemeni prisoners was halted in 2010 after a man trained by
militants in Yemen attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound plane in
2009 with a bomb concealed in his underwear.
Chambliss said that Guantanamo detainees who had been
released had a “recidivism” rate of 28 percent and that one had
been involved in the attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi,
Libya, last year.
News reports have named Sufyan Ben Qumu, a Libyan who was
released from Guantanamo in 2007, as being involved in the
assault on the Benghazi mission. A U.S. official told Reuters
that Ben Qumu was believed to have participated in the attack,
in which four Americans including the ambassador were killed.
Still, Chris Anders of the American Civil Liberties Union,
which has urged that Guantanamo be closed, noted that the
current detainees who have been cleared for release were
approved by every national security agency in the U.S.
government.
Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi visited Washington
last week, hoping to hear some word on when transfers to Yemen
would restart. Obama avoided speaking about Guantanamo when the
pair appeared in public at the White House.
Hadi is respected in Washington for trying to tackle al
Qaeda after taking over in 2012 from long-serving President Ali
Abdullah Saleh who stepped down amid protests.
“He’s done a heck of a lot, frankly, under some very
difficult circumstances,” said Green.
(Editing by Alistair Bell and Claudia Parsons)
