http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2006/September/middleeast_September507.xml§ion=middleeast&col=
"Saudi to free Guantanamo returnees during Ramadan"
(Reuters)
22 September 2006
ARTICLE SNIPPET: "RIYADH - Saudi Arabia is temporarily releasing all Guantanamo Bay returnees held in Saudi jails to spend the Muslim holy month of Ramadan with their families, an official said on Friday.
The United States this year sent 29 Saudis home after negotiating a framework agreement with Saudi Arabia for the return of its citizens from the controversial prison.
”All those detainees who came back from Guantanamo are being released for the whole month of Ramadan, to fast Ramadan with their families and celebrate Eid with their families,” Interior Minister spokesman Mansour al-Turki said.
“They will be back after Eid to complete the related procedures,” he said, adding they were serving various sentences. The Muslim fasting month of Ramadan begins this weekend and is followed by the Eid Al Fitr holiday.
Turki said the authorities had already released some over the past month to spend several days with their families in a programme he described as a success.
In August, Saudi authorities said 9 returnees had been freed for lack of evidence against them."
ON THE NET...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=WAZIRISTAN
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=GLOBALJIHAD
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=jihad
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=TALIBAN
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=TALEBAN
http://www.billroggio.com
http://www.counterterrorismblog.org
---
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/738ijawx.asp?pg=1
"Pakistan Surrenders
The Taliban control the border with Afghanistan."
by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross & Bill Roggio
10/02/2006, Volume 012, Issue 03
ARTICLE SNIPPET: "INTELLIGENCE ANALYSTS woke up on September 5 to unsettling news. The government of Pakistan, they learned, had entered into a peace agreement with the Taliban insurgency that essentially cedes authority in North Waziristan, the mountainous tribal region bordering Afghanistan, to the Taliban and al Qaeda. Just ten days later, the blow was compounded when the government of Pakistan released a large number of jihadists from prison. Together, these events may constitute the most significant development in the global war on terror in the past year--yet the media have taken little notice.
For four years, the Pakistani military engaged in a campaign to assert governmental control over Wazir istan. The cost to Pakistan has been considerable; some intelligence sources believe this fighting has exacted a higher death toll on the Pakistani military than U.S. forces have sustained in Iraq. It is in this context that Pakistan gave up on South Waziristan last spring, abandoning its effort to control that area. Thereafter, sharia law was declared in South Waziristan, and the Taliban began to rule openly.
Yet even in the wake of Pakistan's earlier surrender of South Waziristan, this new agreement, known as the Waziristan Accord, is surprising. It entails a virtually unconditional surrender of Waziristan."