Freed Guantanamo Bay detainees ‘return to terrorism’

SEVERAL prisoners freed from Guantanamo Bay after being deemed to pose no threat are claimed to have returned to terrorism - at times with deadly consequences.

At least two of the prisoners, who signed pledges to renounce violence, are believed to have died in fighting in Afghanistan and a third was recaptured during a raid on a suspected training camp in Afghanistan, said Lieutenant Commander Flex Plexico, a Pentagon spokesman. Others are at large.

Other former detainees are reported to have expressed a desire to rejoin the fight, be it against UN peacekeepers in Afghanistan, Americans in Iraq or Russian soldiers in Chechnya.

Some 146 detainees have been released from Guantanamo, but only after US officials had determined the prisoners no longer posed threats and had no remaining intelligence value.

Pentagon officials acknowledged that the release process is imperfect, but they said most of the Guantanamo detainees released have steered clear of Islamic insurgent groups.

The small number returning to the fight demonstrates the delicate balance the United States must strike between minimising the appearance of holding people unjustly and keeping those who are legitimate long-term threats, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

Human rights groups frequently criticise the US Defence Department for holding the hundreds of prisoners at the naval base. Many have been held for more than two years; only a few have been charged.

An additional 57 Guantanamo prisoners have been transferred to the custody of their home governments: 29 to Pakistan; seven to Russia; five each to Morocco and Britain; four each to France and Saudi Arabia; and one each to Spain, Sweden and Denmark.

The Pentagon did not identify the seven detainees believed to have returned to fighting, although a few names have been made public. One released detainee killed a judge leaving a mosque in Afghanistan, Cmdr Plexico said.

Those in the small group that has gone back to fighting come mainly from the upper echelons of suspected militant or terror groups, some allegedly linked to al-Qaida, several counter-terrorism officials in the Middle East said.

The former prisoners include Abdullah Mehsud, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee linked to al-Qaida who oversaw the recent kidnapping of two Chinese engineers, one of whom was killed.