WASHINGTON: At least one leader of al-Qa'ida's branch in Yemen, where the failed bomber of a US-bound Christmas flight was allegedly trained, was freed from the US prison in Guantanamo, Cuba, a Pentagon list reveals.
The list, released in May, names 27 former prisoners who resumed terrorist activities after being released from Guantanamo, including Said Ali al-Shihri, who was transferred to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and later implicated in the bombing of the US embassy in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, last year.
ABC television named Muhammad Attik al-Harbi, a former al-Qa'ida leader in Yemen, as another unrepentant former Guantanamo prisoner.
Yemen's role as an al-Qa'ida haven has come under renewed public scrutiny in the **** of a Nigerian man's alleged attempt to detonate a bomb on a Northwest Airline plane as it approached to land in Detroit on Friday.
US *************** official have said Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, confessed to receiving specific training for the ****** from an al-Qa'ida bombmaker in Yemen. An al-Qa'ida affiliate in the Arabian peninsula claimed yesterday that it was behind the failed bombing, and threatened new attacks on the West, US monitoring groups said.
