Biden Administration Releases 11 Yemeni Terrorists from Guantanamo Bay to Oman

The Biden administration released 11 Yemeni terrorists, who were captured after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, from Guantanamo Bay.

While the men had been “approved for transfer by national security officials” more than two years ago, they were approved to be transferred to Oman on Monday, according to NPR News.

Oman reportedly “agreed to help resettle them and provide security monitoring” for the 11 prisoners, who are described as being “former al-Qaeda members,” according to records from the U.S. Department of Defense.

The outlet noted that the transfers of the prisoners were “originally scheduled to happen in October 2023,” but were paused “due to concerns” regarding the “instability in the Middle East” in the aftermath of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

That the plan was resurrected during President Biden’s final two weeks in office signals a last-ditch effort by his administration to shrink Guantanamo’s prisoner population and get closer to his goal of trying to close the facility. In recent weeks, the U.S. has transferred four other Guantanamo inmates — a Kenyan, a Tunisian and two Malaysians — and is preparing for the transfer of at least one more, an Iraqi.

Oman has stated that it plans to assist the 11 Yemeni prisoners in finding “housing, jobs and other support systems” in an effort for them to “rebuild their lives,” according to the outlet.

This is not the first time the Biden administration has released a prisoner from Guantanamo Bay who has links to terrorist organizations.

As Breitbart News’s Frances Martel previously reported, in June 2022, Assadullah Haroon Gul, an Afghan national who had links to Al-Qaeda, was released from Guantanamo Bay.

The now-defunct Afghan military detained Haroon in 2017 on the grounds that he was “a commander in Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin, a paramilitary group then allied with al-Qaeda,” the Washington Post reported last year. The D.C. newspaper referred to Haroon as a “low value” detainee given that the group that he was allegedly a member of was now an active participant in the U.S.-backed Afghan government. Al-Qaeda is closely tied to the Taliban, which was the pretext the government of the United States used to invade Afghanistan and overthrow its first government in 2001.

In March 2022, the Department of Defense under the Biden administration also released Mohammad Mani Ahmad al-Qahtani to Saudi Arabia. The release of al-Qahtani came after he had spent “nearly 20 years in prison for his involvement in the September 11 terrorist attack.”

Biden has previously stated that he wants to close Guantanamo Bay by the end of his term as president, according to CNN.