Wednesday 21 October 2009

Former Gitmo detainee shot

A former Guantanamo detainee on an Al Qaeda operation was killed in a shootout at a Saudi checkpoint.

Yeah, that catch and release policy of those innocent little lambs is working out really well.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You don't think being banged up by Uncle Sam and treated like shit for years didn't give him a grudge against the infidel?

David said...

Hardly. That's like Hess becoming a Nazi because of the Nuremburg trials. From the article:

According to the US military and intelligence officials who investigated al Shihri’s case, he was a committed jihadist who left his home for Afghanistan in early 2001.

Al Shihri’s decision to fight in Afghanistan was allegedly influenced by a recruiter who extolled the virtues of jihad at mosques inside Saudi Arabia. En route to Afghanistan, al Shihri traveled through Damascus, Syria and then Tehran and Mashhad inside Iran. This is a known al Qaeda transit route that is used to smuggle jihadists into Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Once in Pakistan, al Shihri allegedly received assistance from the Jamaat Tablighi – an Islamic preaching group that has been co-opted, at least in part, by al Qaeda. Taliban and al Qaeda members frequently use Jamaat Tablighi’s resources for traveling to and from South Asia. Al Shihri allegedly received the assistance of the head of a Tablighi mosque in Pakistan en route to Afghanistan.

Once in Afghanistan, US intelligence officials claimed, al Shihri was trained at the notorious al Farouq camp, which was the crown jewel of al Qaeda’s and the Taliban’s pre-9/11 training infrastructure. He then allegedly fought with the “the Arab Corps of the Taliban Northern Army” near Konduz, Afghanistan.

The “Arab Corps” is most likely a reference to the Arab Brigade 055, which was headed by top al Qaeda operative Abdul Hadi al Iraqi. The Arab Brigade’s members fought alongside the Taliban for years. The group was disbanded in late 2001 after the US-led invasion, but it has since been reconstituted as al Qaeda’s “Shadow Army.” In addition to fighting the Northern Alliance, Al Shihri’s duties for this “Arab Corps” allegedly included burying the Taliban and al Qaeda dead.

At one point in US custody, al Shihri allegedly admitted that he was on the front lines of the fighting both before and after the September 11 attacks

Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/10/another_former_gitmo.php#ixzz0Un6Y9jaT