ANALYSIS: Obama's plan to shut Guantanamo suffers yet another blow

By Silvia Ayuso Dec 29, 2009, 20:45 GMT

Washington - Details of the Christmas Day attempt to blow up a US airliner over Detroit threatened Tuesday to complicate even further US President Barack Obama's delayed plans to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

Almost half the remaining Guantanamo detainees hail from Yemen, a country whose ties with the attempted attack are becoming clearer by the hour.

Yet Yemen is home to Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Penninsula (AQAP), an affiliate of the global terrorist network which has claimed responsibility for the failed attack and threatened more attacks.

A young Nigerian man has been charged with bringing explosives on board the Delta/Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit and trying to blow up the plane as it approached landing. The explosive failed to detonate, instead sparking a small fire, and he was quickly overpowered by passengers and crew.

He has told his interrogators that he received training and support from Al Qaeda in Yemen, media reports say.

The television channel ABC News reported Tuesday that two of the four leaders of AQAP who allegedly masterminded the attempted bombing are former Guantanamo detainees who were released to Saudi Arabia in November 2007. The two Saudi nationals reportedly underwent rehabilitation through 'art therapy' and were later released.

Yemeni authorities confirmed Monday that the Nigerian suspect, 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had been in Yemen from August to early December, attending Arabic classes.

Yemen is increasingly committed to thwarting the activities of militants on its soil, with US assistance. The attacks on alleged terrorist camps in Yemen by Yemen security units in mid-November, presumably with US technical help, for example, were cited by AQAP as a reason for the Detroit bomb attempt.

Still, almost half of the estimated 200 prisoners remaining in Guantanamo are from Yemen or have close ties to that country. In mid- December, The Washington Post reported that at least 34 of the Yemen nationals in the detention facility on Cuban soil were already set to be released, in what the daily called a significant first step to close the controversial facility.

In fact, just five days before the Christmas Day attack, the US military had sent six Guantanamo prisoners back home to Yemen, in addition to another six sent back to Afghanistan and the Somaliland region.

The prospect however of further transfers of Yemenis back to a country beset by increasing rebel and secessionist movements, corruption, poverty and an impenetrable terrain ideal for secret terrorist training is raising hackles all over Washington.

'The Obama Administration's plans to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison facility in Cuba are running into new challenges as information becomes available,' the daily Christian Science Monitor wrote Tuesday in the wake of events in Detroit.

'Al Qaeda's growing presence in Yemen could prove problematic for President Obama, in particular as he hastens to complete the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility,' The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) agreed.

AQAP's involvement in the failed plane bombing 'will make it very difficult to return home' more Yemen nationals held in Guantanamo, a US official familiar with Middle East issues was quoted by the conservative WSJ as saying.

The Republican opposition to Obama wasted no time to blast plans to close the detention facility. And even the White House admitted weeks ago it would not be able to stick to Obama's original January 22 deadline for closure.

The Detroit attempt 'just highlights the fact that sending this many people back, or any people back, to Yemen right now is a really bad idea,' said Peter Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.

'It's just dumb,' he stressed. 'If you made a list of what the three dumbest countries would be to send people back to, Yemen would be on all the lists.'

According to the online daily Politico, however, a high government official insisted Tuesday that closing Guantanamo remains essential.

'The detention facility at Guantanamo has been used by Al Qaeda as a rallying cry and recruiting tool, including its affiliate Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. As our military leaders have recognized, closing the detention facility at Guantanamo is a national security imperative,' the source was quoted as saying, on condition of anonymity.

But criticism of the plan to close the facility was growing stronger, and it not only came from the Republican opposition to Obama.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson also admitted doubts in Politico.

'In terms of sending more of them to return to Yemen, it would be a bit of a reach. I'd, at a minimum, say that whatever we were about to do we'd at least have to scrub it again from top to bottom,' Thompson was quoted as saying.

As Fox News said Tuesday on its website, the Obama Administration is 'under pressure' in the light of recent events to consider sending scores of Guantanamo detainees who hail from Yemen to countries other than their country of origin.

One of the alternatives could be Saudi Arabia. According to former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia Robert Jordan, it is in that country's 'self interest' to cooperate with Washington, and the Saudis have proved their efficiency when it comes to finding out extremists.

And yet this very strategy clearly failed ahead of events in Detroit, given that two current AQAP leaders were sent from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia before allegedly planning the latest attack from Yemen.

Obama has already floated the proposal of relocating Guantanamo detainees deemed too much of a risk for repatriation to a prison on US soil. That, however, does not look easy either.

Legislators have so far ignored Obama's request for the funds to revamp the Illinois prison to that effect. That growing resistance, combined with the estimated eight to 10 monthes needed to install new fencing, towers, cameras and other security upgrades, could postpone any transfer until 2011 at the earliest, The New York Times reported.