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Five Taliban detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay military prison have agreed to be transferred to Qatar, a move Afghanistan believes will boost a nascent peace process, President Hamid Karzai's spokesman said on Saturday. The transfer idea is part of U.S. efforts to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table to avoid prolonged instability in Afghanistan after foreign combat troops leave the country at the end of 2014. "We are hopeful this will be a positive step towards peace efforts," Karzai's spokesman Aimal Faizi told Reuters, adding the Taliban detainees would be re-united with their families in Qatar if the...

President Obama has promoted Tony West to the number three job at the Department of Justice – associate attorney general. The former Civil Division head will oversee a wide array of issues, including enforcement of federal election laws in the 2012 presidential election, but also GITMO detainee policy. Before coming to the Justice Department, West and his San Francisco law firm represented some of the most radical Islamic terrorist causes, including the American Taliban John Walker Lindh. West’s firm also was involved in the case of Mohamed vs. Jeppesen Dataplan, effectively attacking the CIA high value detainee rendition program....

A former Justice Department attorney who blew the whistle on his department's policies is now questioning the promotion of a former defense attorney for an American terrorist to the No. 3 spot at the Justice Department -- specifically charged with crafting U.S. policy on Guantanamo detainees. J. Christian Adams, once an elections lawyer who accused the Justice Department of racial bias in its decision to not prosecute a voter intimidation case involving the New Black Panther Party, said Tony West's promotion from assistant attorney general for the Civil Division to acting associate attorney general is one more step toward letting...

In the wake of the revelation that the Department of Defense has spend $750,000 on a soccer field for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Kansas Republican Rep. Tim Huelskamp pressed Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta on his knowledge of the expenditure at a Budget Committee hearing on Wednesday. Panetta denied knowledge of the project. “Did you know that apparently federal taxpayers are paying for a $750,000 soccer field at Gitmo? Is that something that the Department of Defense knew about?” Huelskamp asked Panetta. “I’m sorry, what was that?” Panetta replied. “A $750,000 soccer field at Gitmo that was just announced by...

Priorities: Veterans of the war on terror will be rewarded with higher insurance premiums that favored unions are exempt from. Obama-Care must be served, after all, and that soccer field for Gitmo detainees must be paid for. For the soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and lost their legs from mines and improvised explosive devices, it is bitterly ironic news that detainees at Guantanamo, who helped maim them, will now be kicking around soccer balls at a new $750,000 field that is half the size of an American football field. This comes as the military is bearing the brunt...

President Obama on Tuesday night issued a sweeping exemption of future terrorism suspects from a congressional requirement that they be held in military custody, part of last year’s hotly contested defense authorization law. The president’s action gives U.S. civilian criminal investigators broad authority to manage the cases of terrorism suspects who are not U.S. citizens but are arrested by federal law enforcement officials. The law passed late last year encouraged that suspects be placed in military custody in such cases. When Mr. Obama signed the law on Dec. 31, he attached a statement saying that he intended to disregard part...

I think I am going to puke. Then cry. Or maybe cry first and then puke. Who comes up with these ideas, funds them and gets them implemented? Was this one of Obama's grovel-ready projects? I wonder what Obama will call it. The Mohammmad Atta Sports Field? Khalid Sheik Mohammed Sports Complex? How About Osama Obama? More DOO DOO -- Daily Obama Outrage Pentagon - POLITICS Guantanamo detainees get new $750G soccer field Fox News: At a time of record deficits, a new soccer field for detainees at Camp 6 in Guantanamo Bay is just getting the finishing touches —...

-excerpt- Majid Khan, a Pakistani who graduated from a suburban Baltimore high school, agreed to plead guilty to charges that include conspiracy and murder as part of a deal that would give him no more than 25 years in prison, and possibly less, according to court documents released

Of all the prisoners detained at Guantanamo Bay, few have received the kind of intense political discussion and extensive media coverage that Omar Khadr has. In 2002, Khadr was accused of killing U.S. Sergeant First Class Christopher Speer, a combat medic, during a skirmish in Afghanistan. He was captured, linked to al-Qaeda, and detained at the ripe old age of 15. For the past decade, Khadr has been depicted as everything from a vicious child terrorist to a political martyr. It's little wonder some American and Canadian observers have expressed confusion about the question of Khadr's guilt for so long....

A former Baltimore-area resident held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has reached a plea agreement with military prosecutors that calls for him to testify at the trials of other detainees in exchange for a much-reduced sentence and eventual freedom, according to officials familiar with the case. The plea agreement with Majid Khan, 31, is the first with a high-value detainee who was previously held by the CIA at a secret prison overseas. Khan was charged this month with war crimes, including murder, attempted murder, spying and providing material support for terrorism, and faced up to life in prison. Khan was captured...

The Obama administration is considering the controversial release of several senior Taliban figures from Guantanamo Bay. Diplomatic sources say they would probably be relocated to Qatar in the Persian Gulf, where the Taliban is negotiating the establishment of a liaison office to facilitate dialogue with the U.S. James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence told the Senate Intelligence Committee this week that such transfers, though controversial, are not new when trying to end combat. "In almost every case where we've had hostilities, that at some point in time, there are negotiations. I don't think anyone in the administration harbors any illusions...

The White House received a letter last year purported to come directly from Mullah Omar, the reclusive leader of the Taliban, asking the United States to deliver militant prisoners whose transfer is now at the heart of the Obama administration's bid to broker peace in Afghanistan. The message, conveyed through an intermediary and intended for President Barack Obama, reportedly expressed impatience that the White House had not yet transferred five former senior Taliban officials out of Guantanamo Bay military prison. U.S. officials have been considering moving the detainees to Afghan custody in the Gulf state of Qatar as one of...

The Obama administration has taken “operational steps” to move five Taliban leaders from Guantanamo Bay as part of a confidence-building measure to further peace talks with the Afghan Taliban – a development that comes in advance of a hearing Thursday where senior intelligence officials will testify on national security threats, a senior congressional official told Fox News. The five detainees were said to be "hand-picked" by the Taliban preparing for the talks. The Taliban transfer issue will be a significant focus of the hearing on worldwide threats. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said ahead of...

U.S. intelligence officials acknowledged Tuesday that the United States may release several Afghan Taliban prisoners from the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as an incentive to bring the Taliban to peace talks. Meanwhile, Afghan officials told The Associated Press that a plan to give Afghanistan a form of legal custody over the men if they are released satisfied their earlier objection to sending the prisoners to a third country. Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper told Congress Tuesday that no decision had been made on whether to trade the five Taliban prisoners, now held at Guantanamo Bay as part...

Note: The following text is a quote: IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 917-09 November 20, 2009 DOD Announces Military Commissions Actions Today, prosecutors in the Office of Military Commissions announced they intend to ask the convening authority to refer new charges under the recently-enacted Military Commissions Act of 2009 against Abd al-Rahim Hussein Muhammed Abdu al-Nashiri, in connection with the bombing of the USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen, in October 2000. The bombing resulted in the deaths of 17 sailors and injuries to many more. This announcement follows the attorney general's determination on Nov. 13, 2009, that a military...

A former staffer for Bay State Sen. John F. Kerry has been charged with leaking the names of CIA operatives, including one who was involved in the interrogation of terror suspects held at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, according to the U.S. Department of Justice and Kerry’s office.

Classified U.S. government information was found in the cells of high-value detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military prison that houses the world’s most dangerous terrorists, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Constitutional defender and appellate attorney David Rivkin debates Vincent Warren of the Center for Constitutional Rights on the tenth anniversary of Guantanamo, how the U.S. treats its terror suspects, the U.S. Justice paradigm, and current legislation. "For the first time Congress has explicitly put its stamp of approval on what here to for has been done either based upon indirect congressional support and authorization to use military force, executive branch practices and judicial decisions." - David Rivkin on not seeing the legislation as "new."

British spies will be cleared in a number of cases of alleged complicity in the torture of detainees abroad, the BBC understands. Scotland Yard and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) are to issue a joint statement on Thursday. It follows an investigation into the conduct of officers from MI5 and MI6. Although it is expected that no charges will be brought in some cases it is understood the statement will contain other significant information. The BBC's home affairs correspondent, Danny Shaw says the fact that the statement has been prepared by the DPP, together with Scotland Yard, is highly...

Washington Post opinion writer Marc A. Theissen has published a list of the Taliban leaders President Obama is reportedly planning to release from Guantanamo Bay detention center — and their wrap sheets just might (or not) shock you. The Obama administration is allegedly considering the release of these senior Taliban leaders as part of a deal to bring the militant Islamist group to engage in peace talks. According to Theissen, if Obama does in fact proceed with the release, he will do “tremendous harm” to U.S. national security “and to his prospects for reelection this fall.” Theissen writes: To understand...