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U.S. sends 9 Yemeni prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to Saudi Arabia

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(Last Updated On: October 25, 2022)

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The United States on Saturday transferred nine Yemeni men to Saudi Arabia from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo, including an inmate who had been on a hunger strike since 2007, under a long-sought diplomatic deal between Washington and Riyadh, U.S. officials said.

The transfer, which took place just days before President Barack Obama’s visit to Saudi Arabia for a summit of Gulf Arab allies, marked the latest step in his final push to close the controversial detention center at the U.S. naval base in Cuba before he leaves office in January 2017.

The Saudis agreed, after lengthy negotiations that at one point involved Obama and Saudi King Salman, to take the nine Yemenis for resettlement and put them through a government-run rehabilitation program that seeks to reintegrate militants into society, the officials said.

The group announced by the Pentagon was the largest shipped out of the Guantanamo Bay prison since Obama rolled out his plan in February aimed at shutting the facility. But he faces stiff opposition from many Republican lawmakers as well as some fellow Democrats.

There are now 80 prisoners at Guantanamo, most held without charge or trial for more than a decade, drawing international condemnation.

The most prominent of the transfers was Tariq Ba Odah, a 37-year-old Yemeni whom the military had been force-feeding daily since he went on a hunger strike in 2007. His legal team said he was down to 74 pounds, losing about half of his body weight.

Ba Odah’s lawyer, Omar Farah, said the U.S. government had “played Russian roulette” with his client’s life and that his transfer “ends one of the most appalling chapters in Guantanamo’s sordid history.”

His case was a source of legal wrangling between the U.S. Department of Justice and his lawyers, who had unsuccessfully sought his release on humanitarian and medical grounds, and also created divisions within the Obama administration.

 

TRANSFERS PRECEDE OBAMA’S VISIT

The transfers took place as Obama prepared to visit Saudi Arabia on Wednesday and Thursday for a summit with the Gulf Cooperation Council at a time when U.S.-Saudi relations have been strained by the nuclear deal with Iran, their Shi’ite regional rival, and what Riyadh sees as a weak U.S. response to Syria’s civil war.

The Saudis have also threatened to sell of hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets should the U.S. Congress pass a bill that could hold the kingdom responsible for a role in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the New York Times reported.

A U.S. official said the transfer – the result of years of negotiations, including an Oval Office appeal by Obama to the visiting Saudi monarch in September and visits to the kingdom by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry – was not orchestrated for Obama’s trip and the timing was a coincidence.

Republicans have expressed opposition to such transfers, voicing concern that more released Guantanamo prisoners will return to militant activities.

But the transfer was considered a breakthrough since Riyadh had long resisted taking any non-Saudi nationals from the prison.

All nine men have family ties in Saudi Arabia, which borders Yemen. The Obama administration has ruled out sending Yemenis to their homeland because it is engulfed in civil war and has an active al Qaeda branch.

“The United States is grateful to the government of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia for its humanitarian gesture,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

Guantanamo prisoners were rounded up overseas when the United States became embroiled in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. The facility, opened by Obama’s predecessor George W. Bush, came to symbolize aggressive detention practices that opened the United States to accusations of torture.

Obama’s plan for shuttering the facility calls for bringing the several dozen remaining prisoners to maximum-security prisons in the United States. U.S. law bars such transfers to the mainland but Obama has not ruled out using executive action to do so.

Ba Odah, who was captured by the Pakistani army along the Afghan border and was accused of receiving weapons training in order to fight with the Taliban, had been force-fed by nasal tube since he stopped taking solid food in protest at his detention. He was cleared for transfer in 2009.

Pentagon officials had said he was receiving proper care. But his case was seen, until a recent uptick in transfers, as evidence of the Pentagon resisting Obama’s efforts to close the detention center.

The other prisoners involved in the transfer were identified as: Umar Abdullah Al-Hikimi, Abdul Rahman Mohammed Saleh Nasir, Ali Yahya Mahdi Al-Raimi, Muhammed Abdullah Muhammed Al-Hamiri, Ahmed Yaslam Said Kuman, Abd al Rahman Al-Qyati, Mansour Muhammed Ali Al-Qatta, and Mashur Abdullah Muqbil Ahmed Al-Sabri.

They were among a group of lower-level inmates, now numbering 26 and mostly Yemenis, who have been cleared for transfer by a U.S. government inter-agency task force. U.S. officials have said they expect to move out all members of that group by this summer.

Written by: Reuters

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Kabul police summons Afghan YouTuber Hamayon

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(Last Updated On: March 29, 2024)

Afghanistan’s YouTuber Hamayon Afghan was summoned to the police station for publishing a woman’s interview without her permission, Kabul police said.

The spokesman of Kabul Police Khalid Zadran said Friday on X that Hamayon interviewed an old woman and published the report without her permission.

“After the interview, the interviewee’s family complained to the police and the police summoned Hamayon Afghan to the police station,” said Zadran.

Zadran stated that police are working to solve the problem with the two sides’ agreement as soon as possible.

He urges people to avoid posting rumors on the issue.

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Contract worth $53 million signed for construction of last section of Khaf–Herat railway

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(Last Updated On: March 29, 2024)

A contract worth $53 million was signed Thursday for the construction of the last section of Khaf-Herat railway that connects Afghanistan with Iran.

The contract was signed between Afghanistan Railway Authority and Gamma Group in the presence of Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, his office said in a statement.

The segment is 47-kilometer long, stretching from Rabat Parian to Herat International Airport and the Industrial Town, according to the statement.

It added that completion and standard operational readiness are expected within approximately two years.

“Upon its completion, this segment will integrate the Khaf-Herat regional connectivity project with Iran’s significant seaports and facilitate access to Europe via the Turkish railway network,” the statement said.

“Furthermore, traversing Afghan territory, it will bolster commercial exchanges between Central and South Asia. Notably, this project’s realization will enable the expansion of railway networks into Farah, Nimruz, Helmand, and Kandahar provinces,” it added.

Gamma operates across Europe and Asia in multiple sectors including construction, renewable energy, power transmission, mining, railways among others.

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US urges IEA to fulfill counter-terrorism commitments

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(Last Updated On: March 29, 2024)

The US State Department said on Thursday that Washington is committed to ensuring that Afghanistan can never again be a launching pad for terrorism.

“We remain committed to ensuring that Afghanistan can never again be a launching pad for terrorism, and we continue to push the Taliban (Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan) to fulfill all of their counterterrorism commitments to the international community,” the department’s spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a news briefing in Washington.

He reiterated that the United States had clearly communicated to the IEA that it’s their responsibility to ensure that “they give no safe haven to terrorists, whether it be Al Qaeda or ISIS-K or any other terrorist organization”.

Miller also reassured US allies that Washington was closely watching the developments in Afghanistan and was ready to deal with any threat emerging from the region.

“We remain vigilant against the evolving threat of these terrorist groups, and our global coalition to defeat ISIS and the C5+1 help intensify our efforts to monitor terrorist threats from the region and prevent their ability to raise funds, travel, and spread propaganda,” he said.

C5+1 refers to a diplomatic platform involving the five Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgy­zstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) and the United States. It serves as a forum for discussing and addressing regional issues such as security, economic development, and cooperation.

“The United States remains vigilant against the evolving threat posed by terrorist groups, including ISIS-K, and has maintained an unwavering focus on terrorism since President Joe Biden took office three years ago,” Miller said.

The US, he said, was “working both unilaterally and with its partners to successfully disrupt threats across the globe and degrade ISIS”.

“We will continue to work to hold ISIS accountable for its actions and to prevent terrorist attacks against the United States and other Western countries,” Miller said.

This comes as IEA has repeatedly said that it is committed to not allowing anyone to use Afghanistan soil against any other country.

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