Thanks to the sharp-as-a-doorknob GITMO review board for letting the asshole out.
Hat Tip to Bill Roggio at The Long War Journal for the story.
A former detainee at Guantánamo Bay has become the Taliban’s chief operations officer in southern Afghanistan. The former detainee, Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, was captured in Afghanistan in December of 2001 and transferred to Afghanistan six years later in December of 2007. His internment serial number (ISN) at Guantánamo was 8, a comparatively low number indicating that he was most likely one of the first detainees transferred from Afghanistan to Guantánamo after the facility was opened in 2002.
Rasoul currently operates in southern Afghanistan using the nom de guerre Mullah Abdullah Zakir, according to an account by the Associated Press. The AP cites “Pentagon and intelligence officials” as saying that Mullah Abdullah Zakir is “in charge of operations against U.S. and Afghan forces in southern Afghanistan.” One anonymous intelligence official cited by the AP says Rasoul’s “stated mission is to counter the U.S. troop surge” that began earlier this year in Afghanistan.
The Times (UK) has confirmed the AP’s story and provided additional details. The Times reported that Rasoul is “responsible for increasingly sophisticated explosives attacks on British soldiers in Afghanistan” and is currently operating out of the Taliban stronghold in Quetta, Pakistan. Prior to his detention at Guantánamo, he was a “high-ranking military commander close to the Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Omar.” (Link to Times article: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5888427.ece)
“In the time of the Taliban government he was the commander of Taleban forces in Takhar province,” a Taliban official told The Times. “He was one of Mullah Omar’s deputies.”
During his time at Guantánamo, the Department of Defense and other branches of the U.S. government thought that Rasoul was a committed jihadist. A memorandum prepared for Rasoul’s first administrative review board (ARB) reads: “[Rasoul] stated that he felt it would be fine to wage Jihad against Americans, Jews, or Israelis if they were invading his country.” Moreover, Rasoul “advised the he was called to fight Jihad in approximately 1997; he then went to Kabul to join the Taliban.”
Rasoul was wounded, treated, and eventually rejoined the Taliban in September of 2001, according to U.S. government documents. “In approximately September of 2001,” the administrative review board memo reads, “[Rasoul] went to Konduz to join up with his Taliban comrades to fight the Northern Alliance.” He was given a “Kalishnikov rifle by the Taliban” and traveled to Konduz to fight the Northern Alliance. Rasoul was then “captured while riding in a car with a Taliban [l]eader named Mohammad.”
During both his combatant status review tribunal (CSRT) and ARB hearing at Guantánamo, Rasoul attempted to deny that he was a member of the Taliban. But Rasoul also made significant admissions that make his denials appear hollow, especially in light of current reports indicating that he is a major Taliban leader in southern Afghanistan.
Rasoul repeated a common excuse used by Guantánamo detainees: he was an innocent sold to the U.S. by corrupt warlords for a bounty. Rasoul claimed: “I tell you the truth (Afghani) war commanders sold people for dollars (to Americans) and (labeled) them different names, like he is (Taliban), he is (al Qaeda). That was not true. That was their purpose, to get money. They sold innocent people.”
But Rasoul’s story and the answers he gave to basic questions posed during his proceedings at Guantánamo were suspicious, to say the least. During his CSRT Rasoul stated:
“I went to Konduz. I went there to earn some money but there was Taliban there when I went there. I didn’t go to fight anyone. I surrendered to Dostum. [Note: General Dostum is a Northern Alliance commander.] I don’t know who he was, but he was the leader of something. When I surrendered I was in the car with another man. That man was a Taliban leader. I had a Kalishnikov rifle in Konduz. The Kalashnikov was given to me forcefully by the Taliban. I don’t recall the exact date it was given to me.”
Suspicious? Ya think?
……Rasoul is not the only former Guantánamo detainee to work for al Qaeda and the Taliban upon release. A Pentagon spokesman recently said that more than 60 former detainees are suspected or confirmed of having rejoined the terror network after leaving Guantánamo. The Pentagon has not yet released a report confirming the identity of these former detainees. However, a previous report released by the DOD in June of 2008 noted that 37 former detainees had “returned to terrorism” and offered some examples.
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/03/the_talibans_surge_c.php
Most of them just pick up where they left off.
These Islamofascist thugs are in GITMO for good reasons. They’re TERRORISTS. They’re members of the Taliban and al Qadea. Just wait and see what happens when Obamessiah shuts down the only facility keeping these animals caged. It’s gonna get interesting.