The Pentagon announced on Monday that 11 Yemeni men who had been held at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay without charge for over two decades have been transferred to Oman. This move marks the latest effort by the Biden administration to clear Guantanamo of detainees who were never charged with a crime.
With this transfer, the total number of detainees at Guantanamo now stands at 15, the lowest since 2002 when the detention site was established by the George W. Bush administration in response to the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The detainees were primarily individuals captured during the U.S. 'war on terror,' which included military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other locations.
Among the men transferred was Shaqawi al Hajj, who had protested his 21 years of imprisonment through hunger strikes and hospitalizations. He had also spent two years in CIA custody, where he reportedly faced torture. The Center for Constitutional Rights in the U.S. provided this information.
Advocacy groups and lawmakers have long called for the closure of Guantanamo or the release of detainees who were never charged with a crime. At its peak, Guantanamo held around 800 detainees. The Biden administration, like its predecessors, has been working to find suitable countries willing to accept these individuals.
Many of the detainees at Guantanamo are from Yemen, a country plagued by conflict and controlled by the Iran-allied Houthi militant group. The recent transfer leaves six never-charged men still in detention at Guantanamo, along with two convicted and sentenced inmates, and seven others facing charges related to various terrorist attacks, including the 2001 attacks, the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, and the 2002 bombings in Bali.
