The US military has sent 11 Yemeni prisoners to Guantánamo Bay in Oman to restart their lives, the Pentagon said Monday, leaving 15 men behind bars in a bold crackdown at the end of a Biden administration that has left the prison population at an all-time low. period in its history of more than 20 years.
None of the freed men had been charged with a crime during their twenty years in prison. Now, all but six of the remaining prisoners have been charged or convicted of war crimes.
There were 40 inmates when President Biden took office and sparked Obama administration efforts to close the prison.
The Pentagon made the secret operation early Monday, days before notorious Guantánamo detainee Khalid Shaikh Mohammed pleaded guilty to masterminding the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people for the rest of their lives. sentence rather than face the death penalty.
The handoff was in effect for about three years. An initial plan to pass the issue in October 2023 was thwarted by Congressional opposition.
The 11 freed include Moath al-Alwi, a longtime hunger striker who gained attention in the art world by building model boats out of materials found at Guantánamo prison; Abdulsalam al-Hela, whose testimony was sought by defense attorneys in the USS Cole case; and Hassan Bin Attash, the younger brother of the defendant in the September 11 conspiracy case.
All detainees are open for transfer through national security review panels.
US officials declined to say what the United States was offering to Oman, one of the US’s staunchest allies in the Middle East, and what assurances it received in exchange. By law, the military cannot send Guantánamo detainees to Yemen because, as a nation caught in a brutal civil war, it is considered too unstable to monitor and rehabilitate returnees.
The United States typically pays participating countries for housing, education, rehabilitation, and monitoring of the men’s jobs. The United States also asked host countries to ban former Guantánamo detainees from traveling abroad for at least two years.
Few details about the recovery plan have emerged in Oman, an independent country led by the sultan. Saudi Arabia has shown its Guantánamo detention center to journalists and academics, but Oman has not.
US officials have called Oman’s program “well-rounded” and designed to help Yemenis return to society with jobs, homes and families, many through arranged marriages.
The Obama administration sent 30 prisoners to Oman from 2015 to 2017. One man died there, but others were sent home – 27 to Yemen and two to Afghanistan, according to a State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the diplomatic talks.
Many Yemenis married and had children in Oman and were sent back to their homes and families.
Word of success has reached the Yemeni detainees at Guantánamo and is making Oman a desirable country for resettlement, said George M. Clarke, a lawyer for the two men transferred this week.
“It’s not just about keeping with the culture,” said Mr. Clarke. “It is because they are given decent freedom, and they are integrated in a successful way in society. That’s what makes resettlement work.”
The men sent to Oman were kidnapped by allies of the United States or taken into US custody between 2001 and 2003. Mr. Clarke said they were eager to join the world of mobile phones and the Internet.
“They want to live their lives,” said Mr. Clarke, representing Tawfiq al-Bihani and Mr. Bin Attash. “They want to get married. They want to have children. They want to get a job and have a normal life.”
In October 2023, a military cargo plane and a security team were already in Guantánamo Bay to transport 11 prisoners to Oman when congressional opposition led the Biden administration to cancel the operation, which was finally carried out this week.
At that time, the prisoners who left this week had already negotiated their exit with representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the guards had taken their belongings with them.
Over the next year, Tina S. Kaidanow, the Biden administration’s ambassador on Guantánamo issues, kept the agreement working through talks, trips and meetings with the United States government and the host country, a State Department official said. Ms. Kaidanow died in October.
Three other detainees at Guantánamo are eligible for extradition, including a stateless Rohingya, a Libyan and a Somali.
In addition, the State Department was trying to find a country that would accept and provide medical care to a disabled Iraqi man who pleaded guilty to commanding illegal forces during the war in Afghanistan. US officials are planning to send him to prison in Baghdad, but he is suing the Biden administration to block that transfer on the grounds that he would be in danger in his home country.
The Guantánamo detention center today is a more deserted place, quieter than ever.
The remaining 15 prisoners are housed in two prison buildings with a capacity of about 250 prisoners.
The prison was opened on Jan. 11, 2002, when the first 20 prisoners arrived from Afghanistan. At its peak, in 2003, the operation had about 660 prisoners and more than 2,000 soldiers and civilians under the command of a two-star general. Prisoners were kept in open cells on a bluff overlooking the water when the prisons were built.
This operation has 800 soldiers and regular contractors – 53 security guards and other personnel of all prisoners – and is run by a junior officer, Col. Steven Kane.
Most of those displaced were returned to countries including Afghanistan, Algeria, Kenya, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia. In addition, Belize accepted a Pakistani man who pleaded guilty to war crimes and became an ally of the government. The man, Majid Khan, was joined by his wife and daughter there.
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