The Price of GitMo Freedom

Opponents of the detention facilities of Guantanamo Bay have been trying to close the facility for years. They've demanded that the US military reduce the numbers of detainees, which has resulted in quite a few being released.

Well, it turns out that the release of quite a few of those detainees wasn't such a good idea.

AT LEAST 30 former Guantanamo Bay detainees have been killed or recaptured after taking up arms against allied forces following their release.

They have been discovered mostly in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but not in Iraq, a US Defence Department spokesman told The Age yesterday.

Commander Jeffrey Gordon said the detainees had, while in custody, falsely claimed to be farmers, truck drivers, cooks, small-arms merchants, low-level combatants or had offered other false explanations for being in Afghanistan.

"We are aware of dozens of cases where they have returned to militant activities, participated in anti-US propaganda or engaged in other activities," said Commander Gordon.

His comments follow the death this week of Taliban commander and former detainee Abdullah Mehsud, who reportedly blew himself up rather than surrender to Pakistani forces. In December 2001, Mehsud was captured in Afghanistan and held at Guantanamo Bay until his release in March 2004. He later became the Taliban chief for South Waziristan.

Commander Gordon said the US did not make it a practice to track detainees after their release, but it had become aware through intelligence gathering and media reports of many cases of released detainees returning to combat.

"These former detainees successfully lied to US officials, sometimes for over three years," he said. "Common cover stories include going to Afghanistan to buy medicines, to teach the Koran or to find a wife. Many of these stories appear so often, and are subsequently proven false, that we can only conclude that they are part of their terrorist training."

An analysis of 516 Guantanamo detainees found that while there was no evidence linking six of them to terrorist activities, 95 per cent were a potential threat to US interests. This was based on their affiliations with groups such as al-Qaeda, their enthusiasm for violent jihad, their having undertaken small-arms training or having been willing to perform a support role for terrorism.

But only one in three could be definitely identified as a fighter for the Taliban, al-Qaeda or associated groups, according to the analysis by the Combating Terrorism Centre based at the West Point Military Academy.

How many Afghans, Americans, and NATO forces were killed as a result of the detainees going back to their old ways? How many of these detainees, who claimed to be innocents picked up off the streets and were nothing more than farmers or innocent bystanders were actually hard core members of the Taliban?

Well, we haven't exactly been tracking where all the detainees have gone once they've been released, but we know the hard numbers of those who have been killed or recaptured in the fighting in Afghanistan. That is quite troubling as is the possibility that there are still more former detainees lurking in Afghanistan or elsewhere that are plotting attacks against US interests around the world.

That should be enough to give pause as to how detainees are released from GitMo - the vetting process used to determine whether they should continue to be held or not.

Andrew Bolt, The Jawa Report, and LGF all echo the sentiment.