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The United States has reportedly released three high-ranking Taliban leaders from Guantanamo Bay Prison in return for an American soldier held by the militant group. The move is also considered as a big concession by Washington to persuade the Taliban to the negotiating table. The three senior Taliban leaders are reportedly on their way to Qatar despite strong opposition from Afghanistan. According to media reports, the released prisoners include Mullah Khair Khowa, a former interior minister, Noorullah Noori, a former governor in northern Afghanistan and maybe Mullah Fazl Akhund, a Taliban Army Chief of Staff. Kabul says the prisoners must...

It is as if the USA surrendered in installments and the caliph has been installed in the Oval office. Imagine reading the following on September 12, 2011. We would have stormed the capital. The Obama administration is set to release Taliban leaders with operational ties to Al Qaeda from Gitmo, even before the heinous Taliban has agreed to come to the table for "peace talks". The war criminals set for release are hardcore jihadist leaders who fought on the fields of Islamic imperialism and killed US and coalition troops. These Muslim leaders would return to the battlefield and serve to...

The Obama administration has agreed to release Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo Bay in exchange for the Taliban opening an office in Qatar to engage in peace talks. A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, announced on Tuesday morning that the insurgent leadership had reached an agreement with the Qatar government and other “relevant parties” about the opening of the office but did not say when it would happen. Secret discussions between American and Taliban officials have been under way for months about taking confidence-building measures including the establishment of a political office outside the immediate region and the release of Taliban prisoners.

The US has agreed in principle to release high-ranking Taliban officials from Guantánamo Bay in return for the Afghan insurgents' agreement to open a political office for peace negotiations in Qatar, the Guardian has learned. According to sources familiar with the talks in the US and in Afghanistan, the handful of Taliban figures will include Mullah Khair Khowa, a former interior minister, and Noorullah Noori, a former governor in northern Afghanistan. More controversially, the Taliban are demanding the release of the former army commander Mullah Fazl Akhund. Washington is reported to be considering formally handing him over to the custody...

Per Fox, Obama is considering ordering the release of top terrorist Fasal being held at Gitmo "to facilitate the peace process" in Afghanistan. Fasal is known to be responsible for the murder of hundreds of Afghanis and is a proclaimed Al Quadda leader.

*snip* As part of the accelerating, high-stakes diplomacy, Reuters has learned, the United States is considering the transfer of an unspecified number of Taliban prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay military prison into Afghan government custody. It has asked representatives of the Taliban to match that confidence-building measure with some of their own. Those could include a denunciation of international terrorism and a public willingness to enter formal political talks with the government headed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The officials acknowledged that the Afghanistan diplomacy, which has reached a delicate stage in recent weeks, remains a long shot. Among the...

We either kill them or we don’t, you can’t negotiate with these animals. (Reuters) — After 10 months of secret dialogue with Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgents, senior U.S. officials say the talks have reached a critical juncture and they will soon know whether a breakthrough is possible, leading to peace talks whose ultimate goal is to end the Afghan war. As part of the accelerating, high-stakes diplomacy, Reuters has learned, the United States is considering the transfer of an unspecified number of Taliban prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay military prison into Afghan government custody. It has asked representatives of the Taliban...

As our involvement in Iraq has wound down, a few loose ends remained. The most important was the status of Ali Mussa Daqduq. Daqduq is a Hezbollah operative, apparently directed by Iran, who was responsible for the capture, torture and murder of five American servicemen. Under the status of forces agreement, he was to be turned over to Iraqi authorities, and could only be removed from that country with the permission of its government. A number of conservative activists and politicians campaigned to retain custody of Daqduq and bring him to Guantanamo Bay or another suitable venue for trial. A...

President Barack Obama faced a civil liberties backlash today after he signed a law that will allow terror suspects to be held indefinitely- even raising the prospects of U.S. citizens being sent to Guantanamo Bay. The controversial move, revealed last night, effectively extends the laws of the battlefield to American soil. The move shows a clear hardening of Mr Obama’s anti-terror policies, and a major shift from the liberal stance that helped him sweep into power three years ago.

Barack Obama has abandoned a commitment to veto a new security law that allows the military to indefinitely detain without trial American terrorism suspects arrested on US soil who could then be shipped to Guantánamo Bay. Human rights groups accused the president of deserting his principles and disregarding the long-established principle that the military is not used in domestic policing. The legislation has also been strongly criticised by libertarians on the right angered at the stripping of individual rights for the duration of "a war that appears to have no end". The law, contained in the defence authorisation bill that...

This is a critical step over the ‘stuck on stupid’ line to the traitorous and treasonous line by our Senate this week. They voted for our Military to detain American citizens as long as they want to, without charges, representation or trial……just because they are suspected of being a terrorist. Americans could be gathered up and placed at GITMO for a ‘mystery’ terrorist reason decided by the military front and directed by Obama or any other power hungry President. It is all kosher and approved by the Senate and President now. Naturally, Obama is threatening a veto, of course that...

The Arizona lawmaker—who was tortured himself while a prisoner of war in Vietnam — said the controversial practice was both illegal and ineffective. BY ALIYAH SHAHID Republican Sen. John McCain is ripping presidential candidates in his party who insist waterboarding is an effective technique for interrogating suspected terrorists. The Arizona lawmaker—who was tortured himself while a prisoner of war in Vietnam — said the controversial practice was both illegal and ineffective on Monday evening. “Very disappointed by statements at SC GOP debate supporting waterboarding,” he tweeted. “Waterboarding is torture.” McCain, who ran for President in 2008, elaborated on CNN later,...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Tuesday that he does not believe that the detention center at Guantanamo Bay will close because the Obama administration has not found better options for holding enemy combatants. “I have tried to be as supportive as I know how to be in creating flexibility for the executive branch and not micromanage the war,” Graham told Attorney General Eric Holder, who was testifying at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

In October of 2000, the Navy suffered a tremendous blow in the USS Cole attack. To this day, it greatly affects the way we execute force-protection. One of the ringleaders of the assault is finally facing a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay. As a former Gitmo Sailor, I wholeheartedly endorse the tribunal process as a vehicle to prosecute enemy combatants. It truly is the best option, after we extract the intel they carry:

Via Greg Hengler and Guy Benson, if this answer doesn’t destroy him, nothing will. I get the sense watching it that he’s so unsure of how to answer this exceedingly easy question that he defaults to Netanyahu’s position on the assumption that prisoner swaps must always be the wise, statesmanlike, conservative thing to do. The alternative, that he knows what he’s talking about yet is still sincerely inclined to release the guy who planned 9/11 plus dozens upon dozens of other jihadi fanatics in exchange for one G.I., is even worse. I’d bet 95 percent of people asked on the...

Afghan security police officers stand guard in front of the Pul-e Charkhi prison's gate in Kabul. Photograph: Musadeq Sadeq/AP WaPo: KABUL— Afghan officials used torture while investigating suspected militants kept in some detention centers, the United Nations said in a report Monday, weeks after NATO troops halted the transfer of prisoners to Afghan authorities because of alleged mistreatment of the inmates. The report found that detainees endured treatment that amounted to torture in 47 detention facilities, run by Afghan police and intelligence service, in 24 of the country’s 34 provinces. The 74-page report raised particular concerns about detention centers run...

Politicians fought Sunday to cast the ongoing Wall Street protests in a very different light, with two GOP presidential candidates calling them "class warfare" and prominent Democrats expressing support for the protesters' message. As lawmakers took to the political talk shows, a crowd of about 100 people protested outside the White House, part of a wave of protests spreading nationwide inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement. The Secret Service said one person was arrested and will be charged with assault on a police officer after throwing a shoe at a uniformed officer. Lisa Simeone, one of the protest organizers,...

The Obama administration’s handpicked choice to run prosecutions at the Guantánamo war crimes court is pledging a new era of transparency from the remote base, complete with near simultaneous transmissions of the proceedings to victims and reporters on U.S. soil… Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins denounced military commissions system, which Barack Obama scorned as a candidate and senator then reformed with Congress as president. Gen Martins, Army lawyer starts the job of Chief Prosecutor for Military Commissions on Oct. 3, according to a Pentagon spokesman. The the war court where he prosecutes will “feature new measures to ensure transparency, including...

A Pentagon legal official has approved charges that carry a possible death penalty for a Guantanamo prisoner accused of planning the attack on the Navy destroyer Cole, the U.S. Defense Department said Wednesday. Abd al-Nashiri would face charges that include murder in violation of the law of war for allegedly planning the attack that killed 17 sailors and wounded 40 while the ship was stopping in Yemen on Oct. 12, 2000. The United States must now bring him before a judge within 30 days for his arraignment before a military judge at the U.S. base in Cuba. This would be...

Isn't Holders statement that we'll close Gitmo before the 2012 a blatant political statement which should be an anathema when dealing with both the affairs of the Justice Department and National Security? Can you imagine the response if Bush's Attorney General made such a blatant political move to help his President with his base? The media pitchforks would be out over how inappropriate and wrong that was. Second is closing Gitmo essentially a new version of Fast and Furious. Letting dangerous "weapons" lose on world to advance political goals (in the case of Fast and Furious it was gun control)....