Al Qaeda, Obama Share Gitmo Goal
As President Obama redoubles efforts to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Al Qaeda’s leader announces that the terror network will spare no effort to free its “brothers” at the U.S. military facility in southeastern Cuba.
Imagine if those Al Qaeda “brothers” had been transferred to a prison in the United States like the president wants? Remember that empty Illinois state jail the administration tried to purchase to relocate Gitmo detainees? Thankfully Congress put a halt to that preposterous idea, instituting a total ban on bringing Gitmo prisoners to the U.S. homeland.
That doesn’t mean the president isn’t working to repeal the restrictions in an effort to make good on his longtime promise to close Gitmo. The military prison currently holds the world’s most dangerous terrorists, including 9/11 masterminds Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi as well as USS Cole bomber Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. In all, there are 166 men incarcerated at Gitmo.
Judicial Watch has been approved by the Department of Defense (DOD) to travel to Gitmo to monitor the military commission hearings of these terrorists. On every occasion, Judicial Watch investigators witnessed a deep commitment to justice by military lawyers as well as the topnotch civilian attorneys that American taxpayers are providing for the defendants.
Nevertheless, Obama is set on shutting down the prison and trying the terrorists in civilian court. Just recently, in a speech at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, the commander-in-chief said this: “Even as we remain vigilant about the threat of terrorism, we must move beyond a mindset of perpetual war. And in America, that means redoubling our efforts to close the prison at Guantanamo.”
This week Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri issued an audio message condemning the U.S. treatment of his Gitmo comrades and vowing to set them free. “We pledge to God that we will spare no effort to free all our prisoners, on top of whom are Omar Abdel Rahman, Aafia Siddiqui, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and every oppressed Muslim everywhere …,” he added, referring to prominent Islamist militants held by the United States.
