Thursday, January 22, 2009

Former Gitmo detainee now a deadly chief with Al Qaeda; maybe Bush wasn't so stupid afterall

The thing I like about The New York Times is that its news pages provide revelations, no matter which political party or politicians it hurts.

Tonight, it provides a great scoop about a former Gitmo detainee who was released and now has become a lethal deputy chief of an Al Qaeda unit. The Times delivered the revelation to coincide with President Obama's executive order today to close the camp.

Closing Gitmo is not going as easy as its opponents and Bush-haters believed. But they'll never admit. Fighting terrorist is not simple.

The Times reports:

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year.

The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with Al Qaeda in Yemen.

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