The problem here is that the high command doesn’t want to admit that we are in a war, and that these are combatants, and that it is no surprise when they return to the war when they have the opportunity. And after all, what was done to weaken the Gitmo detainees’ allegiance to jihad while they were there? Absolutely nothing. That would have been “Islamophobic.”
“Former Gitmo detainee said running Afghan battles,” by Kathy Gannon for Associated Press, March 3 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan — A man who was freed from Guantanamo more than two years ago after he claimed he only wanted to go home and help his family is now a senior commander running Taliban resistance to the U.S.-led offensive in southern Afghanistan, two senior Afghan intelligence officials say.
Abdul Qayyum is also seen as a leading candidate to be the next No. 2 in the Afghan Taliban hierarchy, said the officials, interviewed last week by The Associated Press.
The story of Abdul Qayyum could add to the complications President Barack Obama is facing in fulfilling his pledge to close the prison at Guantanamo by sending some current prisoners back to their home countries or to other willing nations, while putting others on trial.
U.S. intelligence asserts that 20 percent of suspects released from the Guantanamo Bay prison have returned to the fight and that the number has been steadily increasing. Qayyum’s key aide in plotting attacks on Afghan and international forces is another former Guantanamo prisoner, said the Afghan intelligence officials as well as a former Helmand governor, Sher Mohammed Akundzada. Abdul Rauf, who told his U.S. interrogators that he had only loose connections to the Taliban, spent time in an Afghan jail before being freed last year.
He rejoined the Taliban, they said. Akundzada said he warned the authorities against releasing both him and Qayyum….