This week, the Biden administration’s Department of Defense announced the resettlement of 11 Yemeni detainees from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to the Government of Oman.
It explained that one of the detainees – Tawfiq Nasir Awad Al-Bihani – was deemed eligible for resettlement through Executive Order 13492, issued by former President Barack Obama in 2009. This order, titled “Review of Disposition of Individuals Detained at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and Closure of Detention Facilities,” calls for “the appropriate disposition of individuals currently detained,” by the DoD at the naval base and for the closure of detention facilities at Guantanamo.
Other detainees to be resettled were determined to be eligible through a Periodic Review Board process established by Executive Order 13567, said the DoD. They are: Uthman Abd al-Rahim Muhammad Uthman, Moath Hamza Ahmed al-Alwi, Khalid Ahmed Qassim, Suhayl Abdul Anam al Sharabi, Hani Saleh Rashid Abdullah, Tawfiq Nasir Awad Al-Bihani, Omar Mohammed Ali al-Rammah, Sanad Ali Yislam Al Kazimi, Hassan Muhammad Ali Bib Attash, Sharqawi Abdu Ali Al Hajj, and Abd Al-Salam Al-Hilah.
According to the DoD, “each of the 10 Yemeni detainees underwent a thorough, interagency review by career professionals who unanimously determined all detainees as transfer eligible consistent with the national security interests of the United States.”
Land on the coast of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where the facilities are located has been seen as a strategic asset by maritime powers since at least the 15th century, according to the U.S. Navy. By the early 1900s, the U.S. had control of the area and in 2001, following the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, former President George W. Bush issued a military order directing the detention of certain non-citizens suspected of involvement in international terrorism at the base.
With that choice came significant controversy.
“To its supporters, Guantanamo is a fitting warehouse for the ‘worst of the worst’ in the war on terrorism (WOT),” said the Council on Foreign Relations in 2022. “To its critics, however, it stands as a haunting monument to human rights violations perpetrated by the United States in the name of national security,” said the CFR.
As of 2022, Guantanamo was the longest-standing war prison in U.S. history, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. During the 20 year-period from 2002 to 2022, nearly 800 Muslim men and boys were held there, said the organization. Over the years, those prisoners have gradually been released.
“The military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay is a glaring, longstanding stain on the human rights record of the United States,” said Amnesty International in a Monday press release. “Today, it continues to hold 15 Muslim men, six of whom have never been charged with a crime.”
Amnesty International has urged President Joe Biden to transfer all of the Guantanamo detainees and in 2021 it released a report highlighting ongoing human rights violations there. In a Wednesday statement, experts from the United Nations also called on the U.S. to release another Guantanamo prisoner, al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, known as Abu Zubaydah. He has been detained there for almost 20 years though no charge has ever been formally pressed against him, per the UN.
Others are wary of releasing prisoners from the facility in light of an attack in New Orleans last week that has been linked to the terrorist organization ISIS.
“In the wake of an ISIS-inspired terror attack in New Orleans last week, it is appalling that President Biden would pursue an 11th-hour attempt to release the same detainees that were rejected for transfer on a bipartisan basis in 2023 after Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel,” said U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) in a Tuesday press release. “This release unnecessarily jeopardizes our national security, and the American people deserve better from our nation’s leaders. I immediately call on President Biden to halt any plans to release the additional Guantanamo detainees during the final days of his administration.”
Per the DoD, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin notified Congress of his intent to repatriate the 11 Yemeni detainees to the Government of Oman in September of 2023. Now, the department has completed the requirements for transfer with partners in Oman.
Out of the remaining 15 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, three are currently eligible for transfer, three are eligible for a Periodic Review Board, seven are involved in the military commissions process and two have been convicted and sentenced by military commissions.