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March 11, 2009
Top Taliban Operations Officer Is Gitmo Alumnus
Posted by Dave Blount at March 11, 2009 8:26 AM
It's a good thing the Obama Administration is now making friends with the Taliban, because the release of vacationers from Club Gitmo is beefing up its top ranks:
The Taliban's new top operations officer in southern Afghanistan had been a prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, the latest example of a freed detainee who took a militant leadership role and a potential complication for the Obama administration's efforts to close the prison.
U.S. authorities handed over the detainee to the Afghan government, which in turn released him, according to Pentagon and CIA officials.
Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, formerly Guantanamo prisoner No. 008, was among 13 Afghan prisoners released to the Afghan government in December 2007. Rasoul is now known as Mullah Abdullah Zakir, a nom de guerre that Pentagon and intelligence officials say is used by a Taliban leader who is in charge of operations against U.S. and Afghan forces in southern Afghanistan.
The officials, who spoke anonymously because they are not authorized to release the information, said Rasoul has joined a growing faction of former Guantanamo prisoners who have rejoined militant groups and taken action against U.S. interests. Pentagon officials have said that as many as 60 former detainees have resurfaced on foreign battlefields.
If they're caught again, they'll be released again, after fattening up in our luxurious terrorist vacation facilities, where they will no longer be inconvenienced by anything but the gentlest interrogations.
Terrorists must love having their allies in charge of our government.
On a tip from Viking04.
