War and Piece — | Main January 22, 2009 NYT : Freed by US, Saudi becomes Qaeda chief. Posted by Laura at January 22, 2009 10:30 PM

Here’s your jihadi recidivism
Michelle Malkin — This morning on Fox & Friends I talked about President Obama’s Gitmo closure plans and the perils of jihadi recidivism: As an exclamation point on my argument, read this : The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year. The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sana, in ...

Now They Tell Us (Ongoing...)
JustOneMinute — Obama signs an Executive Order to close Gitmo within a year.  The Times presents a cautionary tale: BEIRUT, Lebanon — The emergence of a former ...

Daily Dolt: New York Times Reporter Robert F. Worth
ArchPundit — Quote: BEIRUT, Lebanon — The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year. Yet, this happened despite Guantanamo Bay detention being open.  And, of course, Obama isn’t suggesting that we release all of the detainees so dangerous detainees won’t be released, just moved depending upon their classification.  This ...

Said Ali al-Shihri, freed from Guantánamo, sent to Saudi Arabia, is now the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch.
Althouse — We learn this on the day that President Obama announces that he's closing Guantánamo — by a year from now, following some plan that he either hasn't figured out yet or won't tell us. Was that announcement a sop to his fans, subject to change as he discovers "new circumstances," like the way Said Ali al-Shihri, freed from Guantánamo, sent to Saudi Arabia, is now the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch? Hey, don't be too hard on Obama. It's Bush that let al-Shihri go. ...

Former Gitmo detainee now among top dogs in Al-Qaeda in Yemen
Jihad Watch — ... Update: "Freed by U.S., Saudi Becomes a Qaeda Chief," by Robert F. Worth for the New York Times, January 22 (thanks to James): ...

Inconvenient News
The Corner on National Review Online — [image] [image] NRO BLOG ROW | THE CORNER | ARCHIVES SEARCH E-MAIL PRINT RSS [image] Friday, January 23, 2009 [image] Inconvenient News [ Kathryn Jean Lopez ] "Freed by U.S., Saudi Becomes a Qaeda Chief" 01/23 05:07 AM [image] [image] [image] © National Review Online 2009. All Rights Reserved. Home | Search | NR / Digital | Donate | Media Kit | Contact Us

Oops
Politics Daily — Filed under: Terror, Obama Administration If you want proof the closing Guantanamo is a bad idea, you can find it today's headlines. Apparently, a former Gitmo prisoner named Said Ali al-Shihri has emerged as the second-ranking Al Qaeda leader in the nation of Yemen. From what I'm reading, we handed this guy over to the Saudis, who put him through some sort of "jihadist rehabilitation program" -- and then let him loose on the streets. This, of course, could become a salient political topic in 2010 and 2012 (this is reminiscent of the Willie Horton story. How long will it be ...

Around the Web in 80 Seconds, 1.23.09
The Latest on Air America — ... yesterday. As Walt Whitman said (I early-morning paraphrase): Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes. The New York Times gets itchy and scratchy about the closure of Gitmo by pointing, heh, to the case of Said Ali al-Shihri, who was released by Bush men in 2007 and is not the head of al Qaeda in Yemen.  Labor Department figures are not so truly scurmptuous: jobless benefit claims hit 589,000 in the week ending Jan. 17. ...

Rehabbed [Dan Collins]
protein wisdom — Was it a twelve-step program ? The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda ’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year. The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen ’s capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program ...

Former "Rehabilitated" Gitmo Detainee Becomes Al-Qaeda Chief
Gateway Pundit — Great. A former Gitmo detainee has become a leader of Al-Qaeda's Yemeni branch. Said Ali al-Shihri passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with Al Qaeda in Yemen. Al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in the deadly bombing of the US embassy in Yemen's capital, Sana, in September. Funny, this was reported by The New York Times, the official paper of Gitmo detainees: The emergence of a former Guantánamo ...

'War On Terror' Ends, Obama Starts 'Case Against Terror'
ScrappleFace — ... ,” said an unnamed White House spokesman, “but rather as an effort to level the playing field and to make sure that our enemies get a fair shake.” ...

Freed Gitmo terrorist now network leader
Hot Air » Top Picks — Freed Gitmo terrorist now network leader posted at 9:05 am on January 23, 2009 by Ed Morrissey Send to a Friend | Share on Facebook | printer-friendly Yesterday, Barack Obama signed an order pledging to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay within in a year, but without offering a solution for the current detainees.  That little detail takes on a little more significance after today’s report in the New York Times about the career of a released Gitmo inmate.  After getting sprung from Gitmo, Said al-Shihri became a leader of the al-Qaeda network in Yemen: The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy ...

GWOT Over! Long Live Jihad!
Jules Crittenden — [image] « It’s The Vapid Insufferability, Stupid GWOT Over! Long Live Jihad! Free world, via Washington Post : Global War on Terror Over! Gitmo, other trappings of hated Bushitlerism ditched! Terrorists, via NYT : Global War of Terror still on! Freed AQ Chief is new AQ in Yemen big!   Terrorists, via MEMRI : Global War of Terror escalated! “Our Striking Power in This New Crusader War is Reflected in the Mujahideen’s Participation in the New Arms Race … we can present you with our atom bomb - the ‘Autobombe.’ “ Topics: GWOT , Obama , terrorists Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:57 am on Friday, January 23, 2009 Leave ...

You Don't Say: Released Gitmo Detainee Becomes Al Qaeda Head In Yemen
A Blog For All — A terrorist released from Guantanamo Bay has not only rejoined al Qaeda, but now leads its branch in Yemen . The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with Al Qaeda in Yemen. His status was announced in an Internet statement by the militant group and was confirmed by an American counterterrorism official.“They’re one and the same guy,” said ...

Rudy Giuliani: “All Our Al-Qaeda Number Twos Will Kill You in Your Bed”
Firedoglake — Rudy 911iulliani on Morning Joe: It's very very strange that on the day that President announces this, they discover a guy that was released who is killing people, heh heh heh. And I follow this issue pretty closely, and just talked to someone who has been to Guantanamo ...

Barack Obama’s Dangerous Game Starts the Process Toward Our Deaths
RedState: Conservative News and Community — I have previously said Barack Obama changing the Bush administration policies on terror would get many of us killed. They will. Barack Obama, with his orders to shut down Gitmo and bar enhanced interrogation techniques, is already headed toward Lady MacBeth syndrome (or should that be Pontius Pilate Syndrome). Within the next several years he is going to be repeated having to wash American blood off his hands because of his actions. More proof comes from the New York Times today. The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as ...

Obama’s Dangerous Game
Flopping Aces — Wordsmith opened up a post below for our readers to discuss the signing away of our nations security yesterday but I couldn’t let it go without a few words. Here’s what he did: President Obama yesterday eliminated the most controversial tools employed by his predecessor against terrorism suspects. With the stroke of his pen, he effectively declared an end to the “war on terror,” as President George W. Bush had defined it, signaling to the world that the reach of the U.S. government in battling its enemies will not be limitless. While Obama says he has no plans to diminish counterterrorism operations abroad, ...

Eyeing the wrong president
Political Animal — EYEING THE WRONG PRESIDENT.... With Barack Obama closing down the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, stories like this are going to generate quite a bit of attention. The emergence of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda's Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year. The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen's capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi ...

No More Mister Nice Blog — WHY THE HELL SHOULD WE APOLOGIZE FOR THIS? Sorry, the left is not at fault here, for a lot of reasons, not just the ones Atrios listed. Freed by the U.S., Saudi Becomes a Qaeda Chief The emergence of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda's Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year. The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of ...

Follow the Motive
If I Ran the Zoo — Besides What Steve Said about Said Ali al-Shihri, the former Guantanamo detainee who is now an al Qaeda leader, I want to highlight a portion of the story that isn't getting the emphasis it should. My first reaction on hearing about it was, 'who leaked this'? The timing struck me as a little too convenient, coming on the heels of Obama's executive order on Guantanamo. The answer is in the story: His status was announced in an Internet statement by the militant group and was confirmed by an American counterterrorism official. [emphasis added]There it is: it comes from al Qaeda. They may or may not have ...

Suspect freed from Guantanamo becomes al-Qaeda leader in Yemen
Jihad Watch — A small taste of things to come -- especially as President Obama prepares to permanently shut down Guantanamo, while declaring an end to the "war on terror." "Freed by the U.S., Saudi Becomes a Qaeda Chief," by Robert Worth for the New York Times, January 23: BEIRUT, Lebanon — The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year. The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly ...

Come Saturday Morning: The Torturers Strike Back
Firedoglake — You didn't expect the jackbooted Jack-Bauer-worshiping sadists to go away quietly, did you? Faced with President Obama's order setting in motion the shutdown of Gitmo and other US-run-and-approved torture sites, the folks who in a really just world would be in the dock at The Hague are now doing a full-on, lie-driven media pushback: ...

Where will Obama put the terrorists?
RedState: Conservative News and Community — On Thursday, President Obama directed the closing of the terrorist detention center in Guantanamo Bay, but not for a year. Senator McCain thinks Obama was too hasty and failed to consider where the terrorists detained at Guantanamo will go: “So, the easy part, in all due respect, is to say we’re going to close Guantanamo,” McCain said. “Then I think I would have said where they were going to be taken. Because you’re going to run into a NIMBY [not in my backyard] problem here in the United States of America.” Politico’s Josh Gerstein reports that ...

Weekend Opinionator: Closing Gitmo, Opening a Can of Worms
Opinionator — “We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.” So, in one inaugural phrase, did Barack Obama attempt to swipe away the entire legacy of the Bush administration’s national security policy — and with good results, if you ask the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne or Salon’s Joan Walsh . But the Opinionator was equally taken with a follow-up line: “Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with the sturdy alliances and enduring convictions … they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our ...

About that Presidential Executive Order on Interrogations…
Flopping Aces — U.S. President Barack Obama signs an executive order on Executive Branch ethics as news photographers document it at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in the White House complex in Washington, January 21, 2009. REUTERS/Larry Downing (UNITED STATES) Presidential Executive Order: 1. Torture is prohibited as defined in section 2340 of title 18, United States Code. 2. Murder, torture, cruel or inhuman treatment, mutilation or maiming, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, rape, sexual assault or abuse, taking of hostages, or performing ...

Aboard Air Force One & More
The Anchoress — Sorry so quiet - big family birthday shindig yesterday and today I am working on a project for Lent. 8 PM Tonight, National Geographic Channel: On Board Air Force One: Journey inside the most secure aircraft in the world, Air Force One, as it carries the President through the confusion and terror of 9/11, a secret mission into Baghdad and a whirlwind diplomatic mission through the Middle East. With unprecedented access, National Geographic introduces you to the presidential pilot and the crew charged with operating this global command center in the sky. Sounds like a don’t-miss! ...

Liberal Blogger Aspires to Cook for the 'Poor Guys in Gitmo,' Who Are 'Almost Certainly Innocent'
NewsBusters.org - Exposing Liberal Media Bias — Most liberal bloggers want to close Guantanamo, and some even want to make those "poor guys in Gitmo" some baba ghanoush. That aspiring terrorist's chef is the "Phoenix Woman" at Firedoglake, who complained about Rudy Giuliani ("everyone's favorite would-be dictator") on MSNBC's Morning Joe. Rudy's offense was citing the New York Times for reporting on a released Guantanamo detainee who is now deputy al-Qaeda commander in Yemen. But she complained: Again, no names, facts, figures from the torturemongers. Just scare statements. And a chuckle from Rudy as he contemplates the possible deaths of ...

Obama’s First Week
The Moderate Voice — Here is what we know after seven days of Change: (1) The new president is aggressively attacking the economic downturn and, though perhaps too eager to make tax-cut concessions to roll up a bipartisan score, is realizing that nothing will appease Republican know-nothings and, as a result, showing some signs of toughening up in getting a stimulus bill passed without delay. (2) Though there is much that can be done by executive fiat, it will take longer and be more complicated to make good on campaign promises to close Guantanamo (without freeing Al Qaeda terrorists) and get troops out of Iraq without endangering stability. ...

The Danger of Freeing Guantanamo Detainees
Winds of Change.NET — From Robert Worth of the NYT: The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda's Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year. The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen's capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with Al Qaeda in Yemen. bq. ...

Getting what you voted for
Basil's Blog — With the President ordering the closing of Guantanamo Bay, the question arises: what to do with the prisoners there? Of course, there are some on the left that think they need to be released. This, despite ongoing reports of former detainees returning to terrorism. However, let’s assume that the administration recognizes that the bad guys are bad guys and need to be kept locked up somewhere. Some states are saying they don’t want them. And I agree. I don’t want my state housing them. But, then again, my state voted for McCain. I have a solution that ought to make everybody happy: Spread ...

Did Burrowed Pentagon Employees Leak Detainee Information?
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — One day after President Barack Obama signed an executive order to close down the detention center at Guantanamo within a year, the New York Times ran a front page story detailing how a released detainee from that facility had gone on to help head a local al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen. The timing seemed suspicious. Then, last week, word came from the Associated Press that "three senior Pentagon officials tapped by the Bush administration to oversee detainee policy at Guantanamo Bay remain on the job despite President Barack Obama's order to reverse course." That revelation was enough to prompt Sen. Dianne ...

Did Burrowed Pentagon Employees Leak Detainee Information?
The Huffington Post | Full News Feed — One day after President Barack Obama signed an executive order to close down the detention center at Guantanamo within a year, the New York Times ran a front page story detailing how a released detainee from that facility had gone on to help head a local al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen. The timing seemed suspicious. Then, last week, word came from the Associated Press that "three senior Pentagon officials tapped by the Bush administration to oversee detainee policy at Guantanamo Bay remain on the job despite President Barack Obama's order to reverse course." That revelation was enough to prompt Sen. Dianne ...

Heather Robinson: Bobby Jindal and the Soft Bigotry of Good Intentions
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... seems especially unwise in light of the fact that approximately 12 percent of the Guantanamo detainees already released--who were thought to be less potentially dangerous than those who remain there--have gone on to participate in terrorist activities. In January it emerged that one of them, Said al-Shihri, whom the U.S. had released to a terror "rehabilitation" program in Saudi Arabia, had gone on to become al Qaeda's number two man in Yemen, helping to mastermind a bombing that killed ten innocent people, including guards and civilians waiting outside the embassy. ...

Closing Gitmo: There’s No Room for Error
Pajamas Media — If Obama is not careful, the next generation of terrorists could be led by former Gitmo prisoners. [image] One of President Obama’s first decisions upon taking office was to issue an executive order mandating the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison where suspected terrorists are being held. As a lightning rod for anti-American propagandists and those genuinely concerned about civil liberties, the closure of the camp is an admirable objective, but should it be done hastily and without adequate planning, a disaster will be forthcoming. The next generation of terrorists and radical Islamists may be led by former Gitmo prisoners, as the rate of ...