But John Kerry, Iran Does Support al Qaeda

Posted on July 13, 2016July 13, 2016 by Denise Simon

Primer:

The State Department confirmed that Iran continues to work with Al-Qaeda elements, despite
their expressed hostility towards one another. It stated: “Iran remained unwilling to bring to
justice senior Al-Qaeda (AQ) members it continued to detain, and refused to publicly identify
those senior members in its custody.
Iran allowed AQ facilitators Muhsin al-Fadhli and Adel Radi Saq al-Wahabi al-Harbi to operate a
core facilitation pipeline through Iran, enabling AQ to move funds and fighters to South Asia and
also to Syria.

Al-Fadhli is a veteran AQ operative who has been active for years. Al-Fadhli began working with the Iran-based AQ facilitation network in 2009 and was later arrested by Iranian authorities. He was released in 2011 and assumed leadership of the Iran-based AQ facilitation network.” Clarion Project

Top Intel Official: Al Qaeda Worked on WMD in Iran

New evidence of the bin Laden-Iran connection.

WeeklyStandard: Al Qaeda operatives based in Iran worked on and biological weapons, according to a letter written to Osama bin Laden that is described in a new book by a top former U.S. intelligence official.

The letter was captured by a U.S. military sensitive site exploitation team during the raid on bin Laden’s Abbottabad headquarters in May 2011. It is described in Field of Fight, out Tuesday from Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Michael Ledeen of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“One letter to bin Laden reveals that al Qaeda was working on chemical and biological weapons in Iran,” Flynn writes.

Flynn’s claim, if true, significantly advances what we know about al Qaeda’s activity in Iran. The book was cleared by the intelligence community’s classification review process. And U.S. intelligence sources familiar with the bin Laden documents tell us the disclosure on al Qaeda’s WMD work is accurate.

Flynn notes that only a small subset of bin Laden’s files have been released to the public. The “Defense Intelligence Agency’s numerous summaries and analyses of the files remain classified,” too, Flynn writes. “But even the public peek gives us considerable insight into the capabilities of this very dangerous global organization.”

It’s not just al Qaeda.

“There’s a lot of information on Iran in the files and computer discs captured at the Pakistan hideout of Osama bin Laden,” Flynn writes in the introduction. The authors note that the relationship between Iran and al Qaeda “has always been strained” and “[s]ometimes bin Laden himself would erupt angrily at the Iranians.” Previously released documents and other evidence show that al Qaeda kidnapped an Iranian diplomat in order to force a hostage exchange and bin Laden was very concerned about the Iranians’ ability to track his family members.

And yet the book makes clear that Flynn believes there is much more to the al Qaeda-Iran relationship than the public has been told. And that’s not an accident. Obama administration “censors have been busy,” Flynn writes, blocking the release of the bin Laden documents to the public and, in some cases, to analysts inside the U.S. intelligence community. “Some of it—a tiny fraction—has been declassified and released, but the bulk of it is still under official seal. Those of us who have read bin Laden’s material know how important it is…”

Not surprisingly, Obama administration officials bristle at Flynn’s characterization of their lack of transparency and lack of urgency on jihadists and their state sponsors. “Mike Flynn, in true Kremlin form, has been peddling these baseless conspiracy theories for years. Anyone who thinks Iran was or is in bed with al Qaeda doesn’t know much about either,” an Obama administration official told THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

It’s an odd line of attack, given the fact that the Obama administration has repeatedly accused Iran of directly aiding al Qaeda. The Treasury and State Departments publicly accused the Iranian regime of allowing al Qaeda to operate inside Iran in: July 2011, December 2011, February 2012,July 2012, October 2012, May 2013, January 2014, February 2014, April 2014, and August 2014. In addition, in congressional testimony in February 2012, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper described the relationship as a “marriage of convenience.”

Asked about the administration’s own repeated statements pointing to the Iranian regime’s deal with al Qaeda, the administration official who dismissed Flynn’s claim as a “baseless conspiracy” theory declined to comment further.

The Flynn/Ledeen claim about al Qaeda’s WMD work in Iran comes with an interesting wrinkle. The authors preface their disclosure of al Qaeda’s work on “chemical and biological weapons in Iran” by suggesting that the revelation was included in documents already public.

But the only document released to date that seems to touch on the subject is a March 28, 2007, letter to an al Qaeda operative known as “Hafiz Sultan.” The letter, which discussed the possibility of Iran-based al Qaeda operatives using chlorine gas on Kurdish leaders and includes a likely reference to Atiyah ‘Abd-al-Rahman, was released by the administration via the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point in May 2012. President Obama’s Treasury Department has claimed that Rahman was appointed by Osama bin Laden “to serve as al Qaeda’s emissary in Iran, a position which allowed him to travel in and out of Iran with the permission of Iranian officials.” It is not, however, addressed to bin Laden and it does not include a reference to biological weapons.

And while the U.S. Treasury and State Department have repeatedly sanctioned al Qaeda’s operatives inside Iran and offered rewards for information on their activities, as noted, statements from Treasury and the State Department do not mention al Qaeda’s “chemical and biological weapons” work inside Iran.

The takeaway: It does not appear that the al Qaeda document referenced by Flynn has been released by the U.S. government.

Flynn and others who have seen the documents say there are more explosive revelations in the bin Laden files kept from the public. Those already released give us a hint. One document, released in 2015, is a letter presumably written by Osama bin Laden to the “Honorable brother Karim.” The recipient of the October 18, 2007, missive, “Karim,” was likely an al Qaeda veteran known Abu Ayyub al Masri, who led al Qaeda in the Iraq (AQI) at the time.

Bin Laden chastised the AQI leader for threatening to attack Iran. The al Qaeda master offered a number of reasons why this didn’t make sense. “You did not consult with us on that serious issue that affects the general welfare of all of us,” bin Laden wrote. “We expected you would consult with us for these important matters, for as you are aware, Iran is our main artery for funds, personnel, and communication, as well as the matter of hostages.”

That language from bin Laden sounds a lot like the language the Obama administration used in July 2011, when a statement from the U.S. Treasury noted that the network in Iran “serves as the core pipeline through which Al Qaeda moves money, facilitators and operatives from across the Middle East to South Asia.”

David Cohen, who was then a top Treasury official and is now the number two official at the CIA, told us back then: “There is an agreement between the Iranian government and al Qaeda to allow this network to operate. There’s no dispute in the intelligence community on this.”

Why, then, is the Obama administration attempting to dismiss the cooperative relationship between Iran and al Qaeda as a “baseless conspiracy?” Good question.

And it’s one that releasing the rest of the documents could help answer.

Note: Flynn’s co-author Michael Ledeen is a colleague of Thomas Joscelyn at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

****

Most recently, in September, the Obama administration launched missile strikes against al Qaeda’s so-called Khorasan Group in Syria. The administration pointed to indicating that this cadre of “core” al Qaeda operatives was planning mass killings in the West, and possibly even in the United States. Two of the terrorists who lead the Khorasan Group formerly headed al Qaeda’s operations in Iran. Tellingly, Iran allowed this pair to continue their fight against the West, even as they have battled Iran’s chief allies in Syria.

Obama’s Treasury Department first publicly recognized the relationship between the Iranian regime and al Qaeda on July 28, 2011. Treasury added six al Qaeda operatives to the U.S. government’s list of designated terrorists. The principal terrorist among them is known as Yasin al-Suri, “a prominent Iran-based al Qaeda facilitator” who operates “under an agreement between al Qaeda and the Iranian government.” Treasury described al Qaeda’s presence in Iran as a “core pipeline” and “a critical transit point for funding to support al Qaeda’s activities in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” Treasury made it clear that other high-level al Qaeda members were actively involved in shuttling cash and recruits across Iran.

Former DHS Official Explains Islamic Infiltration and the Agency

Posted on July 11, 2016July 11, 2016 by Denise Simon

I personally sat in this conference call with several others….it was chilling.

Words and symbols have meaning when it comes to the Islamic world. The Islamic Caliphate has a foothold in America going back decades.

YOU MUST SIT STILL FOR THIS VIDEO SESSION.

Inside this conference call, Mr. Haney referred to the Words Matter Memo of 2008. Here is that memo.

This site wrote about Tablighi Jamaat directly after the San Bernardino terror attack.

TABLE 1 – The Six Principles of the Tablighi Jamaat3

Kalimah An article of faith in which the tabligh accepts that there is no god but Allah and the Prophet Muhammad is His messenger
Salaat Five daily prayers that are essential to spiritual elevation, piety, and a life free from the ills of the material world
Ilm and Dhikr The knowledge and remembrance of Allah conducted in sessions in which the congregation listens to preaching by the emir, performs prayers, recites the Quran and reads Hadith. The congregation will also use these sessions to eat meals together, thus fostering a sense of community and identity
Ikram-i-Muslim The treatment of fellow Muslims with honor and deference
Ikhlas-i-Niyat Reforming one’s life in supplication to Allah by performing every human action for the sake of Allah and toward the goal of self-transformation
Tafrigh-i-Waqt The sparing of time to live a life based on faith and learning its virtues, following in the footsteps of the Prophet, and taking His message door-to-door for the sake of faith
*A Simple Message: Tablighi Jamaat’s simple message is compromised of six basic principles formulated by Muhammad Ilyas in 1934 (See TABLE 1). With its easily understood literature, the organization reaches a wide population, varying in education and knowledge of Islam. Eschewing abstract debates on doctrine, the group focuses on the need to reform the individual spirit.
*Distance from Politics: While some current and former Tablighis occupy government posts in South Asia, the Tablighi Jamaat asserts an avowedly apolitical stance. Rather than seeking to improve the well-being of society as a whole, the group focuses on transforming the individual. Borreguero argued that this approach allows the group to remain adaptable to diverse socio-political contexts and has facilitated its expansion. By remaining apolitical (unlike the Muslim Brotherhood), the Tablighi Jamaat avoids political confrontation, allowing it to exist in countries from Latin America to Africa to the Middle East without fear of proscription. However, Borreguero emphasized that this does not completely separate the movement from political authority: some members of Tablighi Jamaat have held government positions in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and the group tends to keep close and peaceful ties with governments in South Asia.
*Respect for Authority: Tablighi Jamaat respects political authority, perhaps because the group itself is hierarchical in nature and emphasizes the authority of group elders.
*Absolute Secrecy: An important key to the group’s transnational appeal is the near absolute secrecy with which it operates. Very little is known about the group’s inner workings because it does not hold official records of its membership and leadership ranks, nor does it keep formal financial books or minutes of shura decision-making. Other than Muhammad Ilyas’ “Six Principles” there is no other overarching doctrine to which the group adheres. According to Borreguero, maintaining secrecy stems not from a concern that authorities will uncover any nefarious dealings within the movement. Instead, it is ostensibly a shield against charismatic personalities creating internecine squabbles and splinter factions. More here.

Yet, the most terrifying organization as described by Mr. Haney in this video is The Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America. While we fret over the turn of our Supreme Court, this Islamic group changes all law enforcement culture in American, lower courts and education through indoctrination.

Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America

ClarionProject: AMJA’s jurists preach jihad, female genital mutilation and allow marital rape. The Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA) says it “was established in response to the growing need of an Islamic jurisprudence specific to Muslims in the West. Its main goal is to uphold authentic standards using high academic standards, moderate approach and a rejection of extremism.”

In 2008, Al-Sawy said that Muslims are only allowed to become American citizens when there are no other viable options because the country is not ruled by sharia law:

“As for optionally obtaining citizenship of a non-Muslim country it is definitely prohibited without a doubt, moreover it could be a form of apostasy or main means leading to apostasy because willingly accepting the laws of disbelievers and obeying it without any valid excuse or enforcement, or ignorance is considered a nullifier to Tawheed [the doctrine of oneness of God] and Islam.” Read the full summary here.

*****

“See Something, Say Nothing” author Phil Haney reveals the
shocking truth about Muslim Brotherhood infiltration into the U.S. and how they are being aided and abetted by our government. Includes powerpoint and Q&A session following the presentation.

Shhh, But 2 More Gitmo Detainees Transferred to Serbia

Posted on July 11, 2016July 11, 2016 by Denise Simon

July 11, 2016

The Department of Defense announced today the transfer of Muhammadi Davlatov and Mansur Ahmad Saad al-Dayfi from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to the Government of Serbia.

Related reading: Lawsuit petition against Barack Obama

76 Detainees remain at Gitmo

From left, Mansoor al Dayfi, a Yemeni, and Umar Abdulayev, a Tajik, who were taken to Guantánamo Bay from Afghanistan on the same day, Feb. 9, 2002 pose for the International Committee of the Red Cross in separate undated photos provided by their attorneys.

From left, Mansoor al Dayfi, a Yemeni, and Umar Abdulayev, a Tajik, who were taken to Guantánamo Bay from Afghanistan on the same day, Feb. 9, 2002 pose for the International Committee of the Red Cross in separate undated photos provided by their attorneys.

Spotted in Guantánamo’s stacks of books for the detainees: A copy of a Serbian-English dictionary and phrase book that looked and felt like it had never been cracked before it was pulled from a shelf on Saturday, July 9, 2016. The stamp says it was approved for the detainees on July 21, 2009.

Spotted in Guantánamo’s stacks of books for the detainees: A copy of a Serbian-English dictionary and phrase book that looked and felt like it had never been cracked before it was pulled from a shelf on Saturday, July 9, 2016. The stamp says it was approved for the detainees on July 21, 2009.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/guantanamo/article88852237.html#storylink=cpy

The weekend releases to Italy and Serbia raised to 30 the number of countries that have resettled detainees for the Obama administration.

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba

MiamiHerald: The Pentagon said Monday it delivered two prisoners to Serbia, ending more than 14 years of detention without charges and wrapping up a weekend of releases that downsized the captive population to 76.

One, a Tajik known here as Umar Abdulayev, 37, had been cleared for release by both Bush and Obama administration review panels but resisted repatriation. In 2009 he announced through his lawyer that he was so fearful of return that he’d rather spend the rest of his life on this remote base in southeast Cuba.

The other, a Yemeni named Mansoor al Dayfi, in his mid 30s, was cleared for release by the inter-agency review panel in October. From 2010, he had been held as a “forever prisoner,” a captive considered too dangerous to release but ineligible for trial until the board downgraded his dangerousness.

It was the second Defense Department transfer disclosure in 20 hours. Earlier, the Pentagon said that a Yemeni was being resettled in Italy. Neither Italy nor Serbia had offered sanctuary to a Guantánamo prisoner before. Now, 27 of the last 76 captives are approved for transfer with security assurances that satisfy Secretary of Defense Ash Carter.

A Pentagon statement called Abdulayev by a different name, Muhammadi Davlatov. He was the last Tajik in the prison of now 14 nationalities and left the base with the other two before dawn Saturday.

“I’m delighted for him. It took way too long but it’s an enormous victory that he would get out of Guantánamo and he wouldn’t go to Tajikistan,” said Chicago attorney Matthew J. O’Hara, who seven years ago disclosed that Abdulayev feared repatriation more than spending the rest of his life in a Guantánamo cell.

Part of it was the stigma of having been at Guantánamo, he said. Part of it was fears that his family came out on the wrong side of that nation’s civil war.

Instead, O’Hara said the 37-year-old man who sports a long black ponytail wants to forge a career as a linguist or translator using the Arabic and English he learned in prison and the Tajik and Russian he learned before fleeing his homeland in 2001. He doesn’t speak Serbian but his attorney said “he’s a sponge” in his ability to pick up languages.

He also wants to marry and have children, he said.

Leaked prison records indicate that U.S. troops brought both men to the crude open-air prison compound called Camp X-Ray on Feb. 9, 2002, the eighth shipment of captives from Afghanistan. In all, 34 men were brought to Guantánamo that day to raise the total of war-on-terror captives to 220. Read more here

Hillary Was A Classification Authority

Posted on July 11, 2016July 11, 2016 by Denise Simon

Primer:

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

December 29, 2009

Executive Order 13526- Original Classification Authority

Pursuant to the provisions of section 1.3 of the Executive Order issued today, entitled “Classified National Security Information” (Executive Order), I hereby designate the following officials to classify information originally as “Top Secret” or “Secret”:

TOP SECRET

Executive Office of the President:

The Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff

The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (National Security Advisor)

The Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism

The Director of National Drug Control Policy

The Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy

The Chair or Co-Chairs, President’s Intelligence Advisory Board

Departments and Agencies:

The Secretary of State

The Secretary of the Treasury

The Secretary of Defense

The Attorney General

The Secretary of Energy

The Secretary of Homeland Security

The Director of National Intelligence

The Secretary of the Army

The Secretary of the Navy

The Secretary of the Air Force

The Chairman, Nuclear Regulatory Commission

The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency

The Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

The Director, Information Security Oversight Office

SECRET

Executive Office of the President:

The United States Trade Representative

Departments and Agencies:

The Secretary of Agriculture

The Secretary of Commerce

The Secretary of Health and Human Services

The Secretary of Transportation

The Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development

The Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency

Any delegation of this authority shall be in accordance with section 1.3(c) of the Executive Order, except that the Director of the Information Security Oversight Office, the Secretary of Agriculture, and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency may not delegate the authority granted in this order. If an agency head without original classification authority under this order, or otherwise delegated in accordance with section 1.3(c) of the Executive Order, has an exceptional need to classify information originated by their agency, the matter shall be referred to the agency head with appropriate subject matter interest and classification authority in accordance with section 1.3(e) of the Executive Order. If the agency with appropriate subject
matter interest and classification authority cannot readily be determined, the matter shall be referred to the Director of the Information Security Oversight Office.

Presidential designations ordered prior to the issuance of the Executive Order are revoked as of the date of this order. However, delegations of authority to classify information originally that were made in accordance with the provisions of section 1.4 of Executive Order 12958 of April 17, 1995, as amended, by officials designated under this order shall continue in effect, provided that the authority of such officials is delegable under this order.

This order shall be published in the Federal Register.

BARACK OBAMA

THE WHITE HOUSE,
December 29, 2009.

Related reading: Military Classification Procedures (She was on the Senate Armed Svcs. Cmte.

So…..are all these people trained or provided the standards for this authority? Judge for yourself. When Hillary speaks of retroactive classification status or applications, she cannot plea both dumb, unknown or unaware.

In the Senate, she served on the Armed Services Committee, the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee, the Budget Committee and the Select Committee on Aging. She was also a Commissioner on the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Going back to Hillary’s time on the Senate Armed Services Committee, there are rules of this committee that demonstrate secrecy, classified material and consequences.

So…hey Director Comey….she DID have the sophistication to know the markings, going back to her time in the Senate.

But…..

. Image result for hillary clinton classified information

EXCLUSIVE: State Dept Can’t Find Evidence Hillary Was Trained To Handle Classified Documents

DailyCaller: A senior Department of State official claimed there is no documentation showing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ever received training in the proper handling of classified materials, according to a June 30 Department of Justice filing in U.S. District Court.

The disclosure could buttress FBI Director James Comey’s testimony before a congressional committee that Clinton was perhaps not “sophisticated enough” to understand that the marking “C” on an email meant it was a classified document.

“It’s an interesting question whether she was sophisticated enough to understand what a C in parens means,” Comey said before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Wednesday. “It’s possible—possible—she didn’t understand what a (C) meant when she saw it in the body of the email like that.”

In the Freedom of Information lawsuit brought by The Daily Caller News Foundation, the department to date has failed to deliver any documents showing that Clinton ever enrolled and passed mandatory State Department courses that instructed officials in the proper handling of classified material.

Similarly, there was no evidence Huma Abedin, her deputy chief of staff, had taken and passed any security training during her four years at the Department of State.

All State Department officials normally receive annual reviews and certification as part of their training for the proper handling of all levels of classified materials, including top secret information.

It’s unclear if Clinton refused security training outright during her four years as secretary of state.

It is known she resisted many other security rules while serving as America’s top diplomat. She used a home-based private email server to conduct all Department of State business, shunned the use of any department email addresses, and insisted on using an unsecured private Blackberry cellphone inside the State Department headquarters in the nation’s capital.

Director Comey disclosed in a news conference July 5 the FBI found 110 classified emails in 52 email chains on her home server, including eight chains that contained top secret material.

Mark Zaid, the lead attorney in TheDCNF lawsuit, said in a statement that Comey’s comments about Clinton’s lack of sophistication “makes perfect sense,” in light of the fact that “there were absolutely no documents demonstrating Secretary Clinton had ever received even annual security training, a requirement that supposedly was imposed on everyone else at State.”

“I did not want to believe that could be true but now, in light of Director Comey’s statement, it might be true. I am still shaking my head in disbelief,” Zaid said, who specializes in national security cases and represents U.S. intelligence officials.

The department did produce some fragmentary evidence that Clinton’s other top aides — Cheryl Mills and Jacob Sullivan — were certified in the “cyber-awareness training.” But there are gaps in the certificates and do not cover their full four years at the department.

Eric Stein, the department’s co-director of Office Information Programs, stated in a June 30 declaration before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that his office could only identify 11 documents pertaining to security training and none show any certification for Clinton or Abedin.

Seven of the documents were released to TheDCNF earlier this year. The foundation sued the State Department under the Freedom of Information Act and is now before the court.

In a July 1 memorandum filed before Judge Leon, attorneys for TheDCNF noted that there were no documents showing Clinton and Abedin had ever taken any security training classes.

“Noticeably absent from the documentation produced by State was any record memorializing completion of a single mandatory security and/or Information Technology training course by either former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (“Secretary Clinton”) or former Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin,” wrote national security attorney Bradley Moss in a July 1 memo before the court.

“Why are there no records for either Secretary Clinton or Ms. Abedin at all,” Moss asked Judge Leon in his filing before the court.

TheDCNF asked the court for discovery, the right to depose State Department officials or obtain affidavits.

Moss has handled FOIA issues since 2007 and has also represented intelligence, law enforcement and military officers in administrative proceedings.

In failing to find any certification, Stein did not tell the court they searched the hard drives, computers or other electronic devices used by Clinton or her aides that were in their offices.

Moss said the Stein declaration “demonstrates how State failed to meet its legal obligations to conduct an adequate search.”

“State did not even contemplate the possibility that responsive records could be located on individual-specific hard drives and/or shared drives utilized by any of the specific senior State officials during their respective tenures at State,” the attorney stated.

After the FBI and Justice Department reported they were closing their criminal investigation of Clinton, the Department of State announced last Thursday it was reopening an earlier administrative investigation into the matter, which could lead to the presumptive presidential nominee losing her security clearance.

Another Gitmo Detainee Released to Italy

Posted on July 10, 2016July 10, 2016 by Denise Simon

So, while Obama is finishing his trip to Poland and Spain and the homeland is under attack by Black Lives Matter and The New Black Panthers and we mourn the death of law enforcement…the Department of Defense was busy otherwise.

They released Fayiz Ahmad Yahia Suleiman to Italy.

Captured at Arab Brigade on the front lines in Afghanistan. Detainee received basic militant training at al-Qaida’s al-Faruq Training Camp and advanced training in poisons at al-Qaida’s Tarnak Farm Training Camp. Detainee is reported to be a veteran of the Bosnian Jihad and a close associate of former Bosnian commander and al-Qaida operative Abu Zubayr al-Haili. JTFGTMO determined this detainee to be:

A HIGH risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests, and allies
A HIGH threat from a detention perspective
Of HIGH intelligence value

Read his full jacket and history here.

As directed by the president’s Jan. 22, 2009, executive order, the interagency Guantanamo Review Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of this case. As a result of that review, which examined a number of factors, including security issues, Suleiman was unanimously approved for transfer by the six departments and agencies comprising the task force.

In accordance with statutory requirements, the secretary of defense informed Congress of the United States’ intent to transfer this individual and of the secretary’s determination that this transfer meets the statutory standard.

The United States is grateful to the Government of Italy for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The United States coordinated with the Government of Italy to ensure this transfer took place consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures.

Today, 78 detainees remain at Guantanamo Bay.

So who is Fayiz Ahmad Yahia Suleiman?

Fayiz Ahmad Yahia Suleiman is a citizen of Yemen currently held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba after being classified as an enemy combatant by the United States‘s.^[1] American intelligence analysts estimate Suleiman was born in 1974 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and the Department of Defense assigned him the Internment Serial Number 153.

As of September 2010 Fayiz Ahmad Yahia Suleiman has been confined in the Guantanamo detention camps without charge for eight years eight months.^[2]

A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for Fayiz Ahmad Yahia Suleiman’s Combatant Status Review Tribunal, on October 12, 2004.^[3]^[4] The memo listed the following allegations against him:

a. The detainee is associated with al Qaida and the Taliban:

Originally from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia,^[5] the detainee traveled to Jalalabad, Afghanistan via Hudaida, Yemen; Sana Yemen; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Karachi , Pakistan; Quetta, Pakistan; and Kabul, Afghanistan.

The detainee worked for a suspected al Qaida operative in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

The detainee trained in Khandahar, Afghanistan to make poisons.

Two of the detainee’s aliases are listed in a document recovered from a safehouse raid associated with suspected al Qaida members in Karachi, Pakistan.

b. The detainee participated in military operations against the United States and its coalition partners:

The detainee was a member of an Arab fighting group against the Northern Alliance in Talaqoun.

The detainee was a nurse at Talaquon while fighting the Northern Alliance and was at Tora Bora before trying to cross the border into Pakistan.

The detainee was arrested in December 2001, by Pakistani authorities attempting to cross the border from Afghanistan with other Arabs.

First annual Administrative Review Board

A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for Fayiz Ahmad Yahia Suleiman’s first annual Administrative Review Board, on 27 May 2005.^[7] The memo listed factors for and against his continued detention.

There is no record that Fayiz Ahmad Yahia Suleiman participated in this Board hearing.

Second annual Administrative Review Board

A Summary of Evidence memo was prepared for Fayiz Ahmad Yahia Suleiman’s second annual Administrative Review Board, on 8 August 2006.^[8] The memo listed factors for and against his continued detention.

There is no record that Fayiz Ahmad Yahia Suleiman participated in this Board hearing.

References

↑ list of prisoners (.pdf), US Department of Defense, May 15, 2006

↑ Fayiz Ahmad Yahia Suleiman – The Guantánamo Docket [1] The New York Times

↑ Summary of Evidence for Combatant Status Review Tribunal — Suleiman, Fayiz Ahmad Yahia [2] OARDEC October 12, 2004

↑ OARDEC (October 12, 2004). “Summary of Evidence for Combatant Status Review Tribunal — Suleiman, Fayiz Ahmad Yahia”. United States Department of Defense. pp. pages 53–54. http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/000101-000200.pdf#53. Retrieved 2007-12-04.

↑ When this memo was first released in March 2005 “Jeddah, Saudi Arabia” was redacted.

↑ Review process unprecedented [3] Spc Timothy Book March 10, 2006

↑ OARDEC (27 May 2005). “Unclassified Summary of Evidence for Administrative Review Board in the case of Suleiman, Fayiz Ahmad Yahia”. United States Department of Defense. pp. pages 77–78. http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/ARB_Round_1_Factors_000099-000196.pdf#77. Retrieved 2007-12-04.

↑ OARDEC (8 August 2006). “Unclassified Summary of Evidence for Administrative Review Board in the case of”. United States Department of Defense. pp. pages 26–28. http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/detainees/csrt_arb/ARB_Round_2_Factors_200-298.pdf#26. Retrieved 2007-12-04.