Six men long held at Guantanamo Bay yesterday arrived in Oman, the first movement of detainees out of the US prison for foreigners detained overseas during the nation’s so-called “war on terror” in five months as the US Congress considers new restrictions on such transfers.
The six detainees — all from Oman’s war-torn Middle East neighbor, Yemen — boarded a flight from the US prison in Cuba on Friday, bringing Guantanamo’s population down to 116. The move means US President Barack Obama has now transferred more than half of the 242 detainees who were at Guantanamo when he was sworn into office after campaigning to close it.
Yet Obama remains far from achieving his closure goal, with just 18 months left in office, final transfer approvals coming slowly from the US Pentagon and legislators threatening to make movement out even harder.
The transfers to Oman are the first to be given final approval by US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, who has been on the job four months.
The six new transfers include Emad Abdullah Hassan, who has been on hunger strikes since 2007 in protest of his confinement without charges since 2002. In court filings protesting against force-feeding practices, Hassan said detainees have been force-fed up to a gallon at a time of nutrient and water.
The five other detainees sent to Oman were identified by the Pentagon as Idris Ahmad abd al-Qadir Idris, Sharaf Ahmad Mohammed Masud, Jalal Salam Awad Awad, Saad Nasser Moqbil al-Azani and Mohammed Ali Salem al-Zarnuki
“The US is grateful to the government of Oman for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing US efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility,” the US Department of Defense said in a statement announcing the transfer. “The US coordinated with the government of Oman to ensure [that] these transfers took place [in a manner] consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures.”
The 11 detainees transferred so far this year have all been from Yemen. Forty-three of the 51 remaining detainees who have been approved for transfer are from Yemen.
The Obama administration is not expected to be able to send them home due to instability in Yemen, which has seen Shiite rebels known as Houthis take the capital, Sana’a, and other areas, despite a campaign of Saudi-led airstrikes targeting them.
US officials have been looking for other nations willing to accept them.
“We are working feverishly to transfer each of the 51 detainees currently approved for transfer,” said Ian Moss, a US Department of State employee who works on detainee transfers. “It is not in our national security interest to continue to detain individuals if we as a government have determined that they can be transferred from Guantanamo responsibly.”
Some US legislators want stiffer requirements for countries willing to accept Guantanamo detainees. Obama has threatened to veto a House of Representatives draft bill in part because of the Guantanamo restrictions.
An Obama administration official said that Oman agreed to accept the six Yemeni detainees about a year ago. However, the secretary of defense must give final approval to the move, which has been a slow process at the Pentagon.
Oman’s state-run news agency did not immediately report on the transfers yesterday morning and officials in the sultanate could not be immediately reached for comment.
The US administration official, speaking on a condition of anonymity without authorization to go on the record, said the Pentagon has sent no further transfer notifications to Congress, which are required 30 days before detainees can be moved.
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