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<p>President Barack Obama used his signing Thursday of the 2014 Defense Authorization Act to take a swipe at Congress for continuing to impede his efforts at closing the detention facility at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.</p> <p>Congressional opposition to transferring detainees owes to a fear that transferred prisoners would attempt to attack the United States. More than 80 prisoners have been cleared to return to their native countries, most to Yemen.</p>

FBI: Terror suspect plotted fuel attackAl-Marabh planned to blow up tunnelJail informant reported `martyr' bid JOHN SOLOMONASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON - Nabil al-Marabh, who ran a print shop with his uncle in Toronto, plotted to steal a fuel tanker truck and blow it up in one of the heavily travelled tunnels between New Jersey and Manhattan, FBI documents allege. Al-Marabh, 36, was arrested Sept. 19, 2001, in Chicago in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. His arrest prompted an RCMP raid of his uncle's copy shop on Charles St. in Toronto. The U.S. deported him...

The U.S. military is retracting a claim made to “60 Minutes” that Guantánamo guards suffer nearly twice as much Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as combat troops. “There are no statistics that support the claim of twice the number of troops diagnosed with PTSD,” said Army Col. Greg Julian of the U. S. Southern Command in response to a query from the Miami Herald. Southcom has oversight of the 12-year-old detention center, including the consequences of duty there on the thousands of troops that have guarded the Guantánamo prisoners. At its height, the prison held about 660 men at the sprawling detention...

The Obama administration may be pushing to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, but that doesn't mean all the prisoners want to go home. Two Algerian prisoners being held at the Cuban naval base are fighting against being transferred out because they fear Islamist extremists will try to kill them when they discover the repatriated men don't share their views on violence, a lawyer for one of them told The Wall Street Journal. Robert Kirsch, who represents detainee Belkacem Bensayah, said sending him and the other Algerian detainee, Djamel Ameziane, back to the North African country is "the most callous, political...

Americans are supposed to have sympathy for the accused terrorist detainees now on hunger strike to protest supposedly cruel conditions at the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. “I don’t want these individuals to die,” President Obama recently lamented, adding he intends to close Gitmo and transfer the detainees to US prisons. But just a few years ago, detainees got so plump from overeating hummus and other dishes from the camp’s Islamically correct menu that commanders specially ordered treadmills to help them lose weight. Then they ordered them again — because they weren’t made by Muslims. “Even the hunger...

The documents surfaced last week in a U.S. Court of Federal Claims lawsuit stemming from a dispute over a more than $5 million contract to provide library and seminar services to detainees at U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Thanks to a multimillion-dollar federal contract, Guantanamo Bay prisoners can enroll in seminars to learn all about basic landscaping and pruning, calligraphy and Microsoft PowerPoint while the U.S. figures out what to do with them. “At a minimum, the art seminar shall include water color painting, charcoal sketching, Arabic calligraphy, acrylic painting and pastel painting,” contract records reviewed by The Washington...

The Obama administration is negotiating to release Guantanamo terrorists to a renowned Middle Eastern Al Qaeda training ground if the prisoners undergo “counseling, instruction in a peaceful form of Islam and job training.” This is no joke, though it sounds like a bad one. Better yet, the famously corrupt and leftist United Nations is helping with the deal, which is being kept quiet and solidified in a western European country. A mainstream newspaper got wind of it and reported on it this week, revealing “previously undisclosed talks held in Rome recently because of security risks in Yemen,” the eventual landing...

President Obama may be one step closer to getting his wish of closing down the controversial GITMO terrorist detention facility in Cuba by shipping them all off to one of the most unstable countries in the world: Yemen. According to reports out of Yemen, U.S. and European officials have been in talks once again to fund a rehabilitation facility that would house prisoners currently detained at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base detention camp.

During his time in captivity, the weight of the 55-year-old Egyptian has nearly doubled, reaching more than 420 pounds at one point "We are very afraid that he is at a high risk of death, that he could die at any moment," said Marine Lt. Col. Sean Gleason, a military lawyer appointed to represent him. Details about the condition of El-Sawah, who has admitted being an al-Qaida explosives trainer but is no longer facing charges, are emerging in a series of recently filed court motions that provide a rare glimpse into the health of an unusual prisoner, There's also a...

A federal judge has ordered the release of a Guantanamo Bay prisoner suffering from severe mental illness who has been spent much of his time at a psychiatric ward on the U.S. naval base since he arrived more than 11 years ago. U.S. officials say Idris, who is in his 50s, was captured with al-Qaeda fighters in 2001 by Pakistani forces while attempting to cross the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

U.S. military officials at the Guantánamo Bay prison announced Monday that they will stop releasing daily hunger strike updates because they say the number of protesters has steadily dropped to a core group of 19 defiant prisoners. For months, the U.S. military has issued reports each day listing the number of hunger strikers during one of the most sustained protests at the prison on the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The prison opened in January 2002 to hold “enemy combatants” in the early days of the war in Afghanistan. …

Two Algerian prisoners at the US military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay have been transferred back to their homeland. Nabil Said Hadjarab and Mutia Sadiq Ahmad Sayyab were handed to the government of Algeria under a deal announced last month as part of efforts to eventually close the "war on terror" military prison.

<p>Oh, pity poor 9/11 defendant Ramzi Binalshibh. The man implicated in the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans and currently imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay angrily told a judge that during a pre-trial hearing that "there are big problems with the food that was provided — it is a form of psychological torture." Binalshibh's specific complaint? That the government was withholding "condiments such as olives and honey." Binalshibh is accused of having helped finance the 9/11 attackers as well as coordinating their flight training.</p>

Guantanamo has devastated our reputation as a champion of human rights, weakened our international partnerships and remains a powerful recruiting tool for terrorists. Military personnel at Guantanamo face challenging conditions but operate with professionalism and dedication. It is not our military that has failed; it is our policymakers.

A U.S. citizen and a foreign national were charged in federal court in Miami on Tuesday with providing financing and recruits to al Qaeda and other foreign terrorist organizations fighting in Syria and other places. Gufran Ahmed Kauser Mohammed, a 30-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen born in India, and Mohamed Hussein Said, a 25-year-old Kenyan, were arraigned on a 15-count indictment charging them with links to three U.S.-designated terrorist organizations that have operated in Iraq, Syria and Somalia. Both men, who were arrested in Saudi Arabia and turned over to U.S. custody last week, pleaded not guilty and were ordered held...

Big headlines last Friday, as President Obama planned, for his news conference announcement. He was naming "a high-level group of outside experts" to probe the nation's entire intelligence apparatus for abuses to boost transparency and reassure Americans worried about their civil freedoms in a new era of vast government surveillance technology. Obama said he himself was absolutely confident no abuses exist. But fears had been stoked by the Snowden leaks and revelations of the immense scope of NSA snooping on civilian society in the name of fighting terrorism. "It’s not enough for me, as President, to have confidence in these...

Sen. Rand Paul renews fight over indefinite detention of US citizens The Hill Nov. 25, 2012 Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is bringing a new — and more aggressive — approach to a longstanding debate over the Defense authorization bill, threatening to filibuster the bill to get a vote on his amendment limiting indefinite detention. Paul’s amendment takes a new tack to curb the military’s ability to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism by affirming they have the right to a speedy trial by jury under the Sixth Amendment. His push to change the indefinite detention laws for U.S. citizens...

Guards were preparing to serve the first in a series of special meals Wednesday to prisoners at Guantánamo Bay to mark the end of the Muslim holy period of Ramadan, which this year brought a lull in a long-running hunger strike. The military planned to serve lamb, bread, dates and honey as the last daylight fasting period of Ramadan ends, followed by three traditional holiday dinners on Thursday, said a spokesman for the prison, Navy Capt. Robert Durand. There will also be a special hour-long prayer for the holiday known as Eid al-Fitr in addition to the five daily prayers....

New report: Gitmo costs U.S. $2.7 million per prisoner William Holt 2 hours ago Barack Obama The United States government spends about $2.7 million per prisoner per year to operate the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba, the Washington Post reports. That estimate comes from a recent study by the Miami Herald’s Carol Rosenberg, who has covered Gitmo since 2002. According to Rosenberg, the U.S. will spend $454 million this year to maintain the facility and pay troop salaries, among other fees — a little under half a billion dollars. With only 166 prisoners, that works out to an annual...

U.S. Senate committee OKs Thomson prison funding By A U.S. Senate committee has approved funding to re-open the prison in Thomson as a federal facility. Sen. Dick Durbin is a member of the Appropriations Committee that approved $166 million Thursday to reactivate Thomson and two other prisons, buy 1,000 prison beds from private contractors and expand a program to reduce recidivism. The state opened the prison in northwestern Illinois in 2001 but never fully opened it because of budget problems. The federal government bought it for $165 million last fall. Durbin and Rep. Cheri Bustos (BOO’-stohs) — both Illinois Democrats...