US sends 11 Guantanamo detainees to Oman after over 2 decades

“The United States appreciates the willingness of the government of Oman and other partners to support ongoing US efforts focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing the Guantanamo Bay facility,” the US Department of Defense said in a statement on Monday evening.

The released men include Tawfiq al-Bihani, who had been cleared for transfer since 2010; Khalid Qassim, a long-term hunger striker who has spoken about spending most of his adult life in Guantanamo; and Hassan bin Attash, who was captured in a security raid in Pakistan in 2002, PressTV reported.

Hassan's older brother, Walid bin Attash, remains detained and is a defendant in a military tribunal, accused of helping plot the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US.

None of the men in the latest transfer out of the camp had been criminally charged or put on trial during their two decades of detention. All were approved for transfer through federal national security officials.

The US-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) said that among the 11 detainees transferred to Oman this week was Sharqawi al-Hajj, who had undergone repeated hunger strikes and hospitalizations at Guantanamo to protest his 21 years in prison, which came after two years of detention and torture by the CIA.

With the latest release, the total number of men now remaining at Guantanamo stands at 15. CCR said that of the 15 men who remain at Guantanamo, six are uncharged and three of those have been cleared for transfer from the US.

The detention site held about 800 detainees at its peak in the aftermath of the purported September 11, 2001 attacks by al-Qaeda, when then-US president George W Bush set up the prison camp to hold suspects indefinitely and without charge and disallowing legal challenges to their detention.

Rights groups and some lawmakers have pushed successive US administrations to close Guantanamo or, at least, release all those detainees never charged with a crime.

Outgoing President Joe Biden had pledged before his election in 2020 to try to shut down Guantanamo, but it remains in operation just weeks before he leaves office.

SD/