Former Gitmo detainee now al Qaeda Commander

[Christians4LessGvt]

Former Gitmo detainee featured as commander in al Qaeda tape

By Thomas Joscelyn

May 28, 2010

A videotape released by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) earlier this week says that a former Guantanamo detainee is now a commander within the terrorist organization.

The former detainee, Othman Ahmed al Ghamdi, has risen to the rank of operational commander within AQAP as other senior terrorists within the organization have been killed in recent strikes. The tape, which is titled "America and the Final Trap," confirms that three AQAP leaders were killed in a strike last December.

According to a translation of the tape obtained by the Long War Journal, al Ghamdi denounces the airstrikes, claiming that America refuses to confront al Qaeda directly on the battlefield. (Of course, al Qaeda itself prefers terrorist attacks against civilians, rather than direct warfare.) Along with other AQAP leaders featured in the video, al Ghamdi portrays counterterrorism operations in Yemen as part of a crusade led by America against the Muslim world. This is a standard part of al Qaeda's propaganda.

Also featured in the tape are Qasim al Raymi, AQAP's military commander, and Fahd al Quso, an al Qaeda operative wanted for his role in the USS Cole bombing.

In the tape, AQAP threatens America with further terrorist attacks. The AQAP leaders also celebrate previous AQAP-linked terrorist plots. Both Major Nidal Malik Hasan (who killed 13 Americans during a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas last year) and Umar Farouq Abdulmutallab (who attempted to bomb a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas Day 2009) are celebrated as heroes.

The tape includes a short segment in which Abdulmutallab calls on Muslims to wage jihad.

"He hates America".

Al Ghamdi was a soldier in the Saudi military until early 2000. He deserted the military after he became interested in fighting the Russians in Chechnya a cause that frequently attracts new al Qaeda recruits. According to a memo produced by US officials at Gitmo and reproduced on the New York Times' web site, al Ghamdi said "he wanted to fight alongside the Muslims in Chechnya because he did not want to see his "brothers and sisters" killed and butchered."

The same memo notes that al Ghamdi never made it to Chechnya. Instead, he was trained at al Qaeda's notorious al Farouq camp in Afghanistan and then served on the front lines fighting the Northern Alliance for more than one year.

While al Ghamdi admitted to US authorities that he was a proud mujahedin, he claimed to have no knowledge of Osama bin Laden or al Qaeda. But Gitmo authorities found that al Ghamdi frequently lied about his terror ties. He originally provided the interrogation team with a false name and false citizenship information, Gitmo authorities noted. Al Ghamdi also changed his story and appeared evasive at times. He initially claimed that no on inspired him to wage jihad in Chechnya, but later conceded that a friend ?ave him information about the fighting in Chechnya and Taliban training in Afghanistan.

Al Ghamdi did not always hide his ideological disposition at Gitmo. US authorities wrote that he "dwells in his beliefs." The US officials elaborated:

The detainee [al Ghamdi] stated that he never harmed any Muslims. The detainee believes all fatwas state that Americans should not be in the Arabian Peninsula. The detainee blames Americans for everything bad that has happened in Afghanistan and other Muslim countries. He hates America.

Al Ghamdi was captured on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan in December 2001 after fleeing the Tora Bora Mountains along with other al Qaeda members. The native Saudi was held at Guantanamo until June 2006, when he was repatriated to his home country.

Al Ghamdi was then enrolled in a rehabilitation program for jihadists set up by the Saudi government. After completing the program, al Ghamdi fled to Yemen where he rejoined al Qaeda. In early 2009, al Ghamdi was added to the Saudi Kingdom?s most wanted list, along with at least 10 other former Gitmo detainees.

In September 2009 al Ghamdi reportedly called his family to let them know that another former Gitmo detainee, Fahd Saleh Suleiman al Jutayli, had been killed in a shootout.

Gitmo ties abound

Al Ghamdi joins other former Gitmo detainees who have gone on to hold leadership positions within AQAP. Said al Shihri is currently the group?s second-in-command. Ibrahim Rubaish, another Gitmo alumnus, is AQAP?s mufti, or chief theologian.

In addition to the aforementioned Fahd al Jutayli, still other former Gitmo detainees have died fighting for AQAP. Yousef al Shihri (Said al Shihri?s brother-in-law) was killed by Saudi security forces in October 2009. Yousef was dressed as a woman at the time, and his garb concealed a suicide explosives belt.

Another former Gitmo detainee, Hani Abdo Shaalan, was killed in December 2009 while he was reportedly assisting AQAP in planned attacks on the British embassy and other western targets inside Yemen. Unlike the other former Gitmo detainees mentioned above, Shaalan was a native of Yemen.

The ties between Guantanamo and AQAP do not end there. Other former Gitmo detainees have reportedly made their way to Yemen to join the organization.

Qasim al Raymi, who is AQAP?s top military commander and is featured in AQAP's most recent tape along with Othman Ahmed al Ghamdi, also has a brother who is currently detained in Cuba.

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/05/former_gitmo_detaine_4.php


Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Othman Ahmed al Ghamdi,
in a tape released by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

[sirs]

I can almost visualize this fella, and his "friends" laughing

[Kramer]

Bush caused it

[Michael Tee]

I guess the headline "Released Ex-Con Reoffends" would strike our right-wing friends as bizarre and unheard of.  Why let anyone out of jail if the charges against them can't be proven in court?  Why not just kill the whole fucking bunch of them, and empty the prisons?

The craziness of the so-called conservatives is virtually unlimited.  "Ex-POW Rejoins Old Unit."  Wow, who woulda thunk? 

If the guy was innocent when he went into Guantanamo, his experiences there and those of his fellow prisoners would have justified him in any action he takes against the U.S.  You made him an enemy for life.  OTOH if he was already al Qaeda when he went in, there was never any proof of it - - so there was still no reason to detain him and torture him.  Logically your only alternative is to kill all of them if you are so scared of making a judicial error and letting a guilty guy walk for loss of evidence - - something that happens routinely in your own criminal system, where the guys you let go have a much better shot of killing more Americans on their home turf than these guys ever will have.

You take prisoners you have no business taking, in lands thousands of miles away from your own, which you have invaded in total violation of international law, and then when you can't make any case against them, are faced with the dilemma of holding them forever on no charges and no convictions, letting them go or killing them.  Smart.

You got yourselves into this jackpot, now get yourselves out.

[sirs]

I guess the headline "Released Ex-Con Reoffends" would strike our right-wing friends as bizarre and unheard of.  Why let anyone out of jail if the charges against them can't be proven in court?  Why not just kill the whole fucking bunch of them, and empty the prisons?

Or just do what is normally done in a time of war, detain them.  Wow, what a concept

[Xavier_Onassis]

The only time we ever hear about a common criminal being sent back to jail is when he is a child molester. Bank robbers, liquor store robbers, extortionists, embezzlers, counterfeiters, if they return to their old crimes, we never hear about it, unless they kill someone famous, or perhaps kidnap a child or someone famous.

Many of those they put in Guantanamo were not guilty of anything more than being a foreigner in Afghanistan, a country with extremely porous borders and no real government. I think you can easily expect some recidivism.

[Plane]

I guess the headline "Released Ex-Con Reoffends" would strike our right-wing friends as bizarre and unheard of.  Why let anyone out of jail if the charges against them can't be proven in court?  Why not just kill the whole fucking bunch of them, and empty the prisons?

The craziness of the so-called conservatives is virtually unlimited.  "Ex-POW Rejoins Old Unit."  Wow, who woulda thunk? 

If the guy was innocent when he went into Guantanamo, his experiences there and those of his fellow prisoners would have justified him in any action he takes against the U.S.  You made him an enemy for life.  OTOH if he was already al Qaeda when he went in, there was never any proof of it - - so there was still no reason to detain him and torture him.  Logically your only alternative is to kill all of them if you are so scared of making a judicial error and letting a guilty guy walk for loss of evidence - - something that happens routinely in your own criminal system, where the guys you let go have a much better shot of killing more Americans on their home turf than these guys ever will have.

You take prisoners you have no business taking, in lands thousands of miles away from your own, which you have invaded in total violation of international law, and then when you can't make any case against them, are faced with the dilemma of holding them forever on no charges and no convictions, letting them go or killing them.  Smart.

You got yourselves into this jackpot, now get yourselves out.

This is a clue that the Obama policy of killing more of them in the feild and haveing few taken alive might actually be the best policy.

[Michael Tee]

Every one you kill in the field leaves a couple dozen at least looking for payback.  Which is why this is such a self-defeating endeavour.

The issue we've been discussing up to now was not what happens in the field, but what happens to the prisoners that you DO take, and whether or not you should be taking so many.

[Plane]

Every one you kill in the field leaves a couple dozen at least looking for payback.  Which is why this is such a self-defeating endeavour.

The issue we've been discussing up to now was not what happens in the field, but what happens to the prisoners that you DO take, and whether or not you should be taking so many.

Obama is working this out , fewer attempts at takeing prisoners , more outright smackdowns.

Every American they kill is morned by twenty times as many , they have no idea what sort of creature we are.

Our paitience is large and long , but when it is finally exausted , they will still be fighting us , without paitience left we will very likely break out the heavyer weapons.

[Michael Tee]

<<Obama is working this out , fewer attempts at takeing prisoners , more outright smackdowns.>>

Let's get real, plane.  Fewer and fewer battles in the field, more assassinations by remote-controlled drones.  Basically, your politicians are unwilling to risk the lives of your soldiers in combat, so they substitute remote-controlled attacks on defenceless villages and hope for the best.  As I said in my last post, a cowardly and self-defeating endeavour.

<<Every American they kill is morned by twenty times as many . . . >>
Bullshit.

<< . . . they have no idea what sort of creature we are.>>

Well, I'VE got a pretty good idea and I think you're a bunch of big-talking blowhards.  You were no match for the Vietnamese and you're no match for the Afghans either.  You're combat-averse and prefer to do your killing from remote, safe locations - - which seals your fate because you can't really know who it is you are killing from your keyboards and monitors.  Anyone who wants to know what sort of creature you are can study the photos from Abu Ghraib - - the 10% the DoD lets you see and the 90% that it doesn't; and then they can watch the old newsreels of the helicopters departing from the Embassy roof in Saigon.  THAT'S the sort of creature you are.  And the rest of the world knows it too.

<<Our paitience is large and long , but when it is finally exausted , they will still be fighting us , without paitience left we will very likely break out the heavyer weapons.>>

You'll run like the bitches you are when you run out of money and enough of you have died over there.  Won't be the first time.

[Plane]

<<Obama is working this out , fewer attempts at takeing prisoners , more outright smackdowns.>>

Let's get real, plane.  Fewer and fewer battles in the field, more assassinations by remote-controlled drones.  Basically, your politicians are unwilling to risk the lives of your soldiers in combat, so they substitute remote-controlled attacks on defenceless villages and hope for the best.  As I said in my last post, a cowardly and self-defeating endeavour.

Our enemy is slowly dwindling. This would not be their fate if there were a Soviet Union willing to break its banks to replinish them. No force can feild an army bigger than its ability to feed an army .

I think we still need to block the opium trade , but this can be done halfway to Europe not nescessacerily on the poppy feild.

Also winding up western contacts and money sorces would help.

And interception of arms dealers.

The Al Quieda is in a slowly tightening noose.

Imagine a North Vietnam with tighter money , much lessor man power and not enough horse sense to ever allow us to quit.

[Michael Tee]

Well, you sure talk a good fight.  I hope to hell you are wrong.  You need to lose, and lose big in Afghanistan, and I pray that is what will  happen to you.  So far nobody has conquered the Afghans.  They all came in, like you, with your big talk and your insanely optimistic predictions, and they all left like whipped dogs, defeated and humiliated.  Please God that is what will happen to the U.S.A.  Nobody deserves it more.

[BT]

You need to lose, and lose big in Afghanistan, and I pray that is what will  happen to you.

Why do we need to lose?

[Plane]

Well, you sure talk a good fight.  I hope to hell you are wrong.  You need to lose, and lose big in Afghanistan, and I pray that is what will  happen to you.  So far nobody has conquered the Afghans.  They all came in, like you, with your big talk and your insanely optimistic predictions, and they all left like whipped dogs, defeated and humiliated.  Please God that is what will happen to the U.S.A.  Nobody deserves it more.

The logistical problem and the hard part is to leave some of them alive, if we really run out of paitience I think we will attempt to merely leave .

Then the Al Quieda being low in the brain cell department will not allow us to leave, and president Obama late in his second term will return to Afganistan useing Air Power only.

[Michael Tee]

<<Why do we need to lose?>>

Because of your arrogance.  The arrogance that led you to invade unoffending Third World countries and kill millions of unfortunate people all over the world.  When you got your ass kicked in Viet Nam, the attacks on the rest of the world ceased for a long time.  If you lose big in Afghanistan, it will be a long time before your arrogance leads you to launch other unprovoked attacks on other unfortunate countries.

It is like a schoolyard bully.  If nobody stops him, his attacks continue.  When finally somebody kicks his ass unexpectedly, the bully learns his lesson.  All bullies at heart are nothing but cowards.  When they see that their aggression can get them badly hurt, they cease aggressing.  At least for a time.