WORLD> Middle East
Released detainee now Yemen al-Qaida commander
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-01-24 16:10

WASHINGTON -- A released Guantanamo Bay terror detainee's re-emergence as an al-Qaida commander in Yemen highlights the difficulty US President Barack Obama faces in his efforts to close the detention facility and decide the fates of US captives.

This image taken from an undated video posted on a militant-leaning Web site Friday, Jan. 23, 2009, and provided by the SITE Intelligence Group shows Said Ali al-Shihri. The released Guantanamo Bay terror detainee's re-emergence as an al-Qaida commander in Yemen highlights the difficulty President Barack Obama faces in his efforts to close the detention facility and decide the fates of US captives. [Agencies]

A US counterterror official confirmed Friday that Said Ali al-Shihri, who was jailed at Guantanamo for six years after his capture in Pakistan, has resurfaced as a leader of a Yemeni branch of al-Qaida.

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"By Allah, imprisonment only increased our persistence in our principles for which we went out, did jihad for, and were imprisoned for," al-Shihri said in a video posted on a militant-leaning Web site Friday. It was the second time this week a reference to al-Shihri has shown up on the Web site. He was mentioned in an online magazine on Jan. 19 with a reference to his prisoner number at Guantanamo, 372.

Al-Shihri was released by the US in 2007 to the Saudi government for rehabilitation. But this week a publication posted on the site said he is now the top deputy in "al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula," a Yemeni offshoot of the terror group headed by Osama bin Laden. The group has been implicated in several attacks on the US Embassy in Yemen's capital Sana.

The second announcement from the site came the day after US President Barack Obama signed an executive order directing the closure of the prison at the US naval base in Cuba within a year.

That announcement, which carried the video post of al-Shihri, also included a second video of a second militant who identified himself as Abu al-Hareth Muhammad al-Oufi and claimed he had also been a Guantanamo captive, later released. Both videos were partially translated by SITE Intel Group, an organization that monitors extremist Web sites.

Al-Shihri is one of a small number of deputies in the Yemeni group, the US counterterror official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive intelligence. US officials were not available to verify the claims of the second militant who appeared on video.

A key question facing Obama's new administration is what to do with the 245 prisoners still confined at Guantanamo. That means finding new detention facilities for hard-core prisoners while trying to determine which detainees are harmless enough to release.

According to the Pentagon, at least 18 former Guantanamo detainees have "returned to the fight" and 43 others are suspected of resuming terrorist activities. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell declined to provide the identity of the former detainees or say what their terrorist activities were.

It is unclear whether al-Shihri's name would be a new addition to that list of 61.

The militant Web site referred to al-Shihri under his terror nom de guerre, "Abu Sayyaf al-Shihri." The video refers to him as "Abu Sufyan al-Azdi al-Shahri."

An online magazine posted to the Internet site said al-Shihri is the group's second-in-command in Yemen. "He managed to leave the land of the two shrines (Saudi Arabia) and join his brothers in al-Qaida," the statement said.

Included in the site's material was a message to Yemen's populace from al-Qaida figure Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's top deputy.

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