Ex-Guantanamo Detainee Joined Iraq Suicide Bombing

A Kuwaiti man who complained about maltreatment during a three-year stay in the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was involved in a deadly suicide bombing in northern Iraq last month, the U.S. military confirmed yesterday.

Abdallah Salih al-Ajmi, 29, whom the U.S. military accused of fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan and wanting to kill Americans, was involved in one of three suicide bombings that killed seven Iraqi security forces in Mosul on April 26, Defense Department officials said.

They said that after his release in Kuwait, Ajmi traveled to Iraq via Syria -- a common way for foreign fighters to enter Iraq through porous borders. Military officials said Ajmi's motives were unclear, but in a lengthy martyrdom audio recording before his death, Ajmi implores people to take part in suicide bombings to attack Americans.

In portions of the recording translated by the Bethesda-based SITE Intelligence Group, Ajmi decries the conditions at Guantanamo as "deplorable" and urges others to fight.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[RJC]

You know what.? If I had been sent to Gitmo, and I was a terrorist, and let go, I would return to fighting the US. You know what else, if I was not a terrorist, but completely innocent, and let go, I would probably join anyone fighting the US. I would fight anyone who unjuslty imprisoned me and denied me due process, that is what any red-blooded American would do, or anyone else. That is precisely the dillemma one faces when one acts unjustly, such as our government. I would say most of the people in GITMO have terrorist ties, but there are a few innocent people. One innocent person is too many without due process. One innocent person person rendered and tortured and killed anywhere in the world on our behalf is too many, if we are the country we profess to be. Or lets stop pretending, be honest and declare we are in fact as heinous as many others in the world. Then we don't have to keep justifying ourselves, everyone sees through the facade anyway. Our compromising our own proffessed principles has done more to support our enemies and eliminated our support around the world than anything the terrorists could ever have devised.

[GhostintheMachine]

This is what happens when bleeding heart liberals and the ACLU get involved.

[Ramirez]

It's Bush's fault.

[Paralogos]

Wow, who would have thought that torturing people would make them violently hostile? Clearly, the only thing to do is to execute all accused enemy combattants in American custody who aren't actually delivering valuable intelligence.

[RedEyes]

Wow. Apparently we let out the only actual terrorist in Gitmo. What are the odds!

[lornejl]

Its so sad everyone doesn't love us, I just don't understand, after all we have done for them, it makes no sense.

[RJC]

Yeah, the GITMO folks are so ungrateful. We're the greatest country on earth, my government tells me so. I think we should charge them under the Cuba embargo law, us Americans can't even visit the tropical paradise of Cuba, what about my rights?

[OsamaBinLimbaugh]

After all we did for him- this is the way he repays us! Ungrateful terrorist ! We should just torture them all, then they'll come around and like us.

[gcallaghan]

Republicans = Military Failure

[Liam]

There are so very many ways this could be something other than what we're seeing, I caution anyone to believe they know the facts.

The Administration will spin this as a reason why they need to keep more control over the people in Guantanamo.

But I look at it and think two things:

First, are we certain that our abusive treatment didn't drive him to attack us back?

And second (and this one makes me very sad) can we even believe the "facts" of the story, coming from an Administration which has proven time and again to be perfectly willing to propagandize, releasing facts that are not in evidence or not at all carefully checked, because it was politically expedient.

Liam.

[GhostintheMachine]

Your support for terrorists and terrorism is revealing.

[RJC]

Hey " idiotinthemachine" your posts are revealing

[Liam]

Yep, I knew as I wrote the above that the closed-minded would automatically assume that I was weak on terror.

What I am is strong on civil liberties, and weak on trust in the Administration, because they have repeatedly proven themselves to be willing to lie to us.

If he was that bad a guy when we had him, why did we let him go? It's not like there's been a mass release of prisoners, the Administration drags their heals and pretty much only lets go those that seem absolutely free from the taint of terrorist activity.

I do believe, however, that if you do enough bad things to someone, you can lead them to want to get revenge on you. I believe that we may be creating another generation of terrorists, growing up hating us for what's going on in their country.

All I'm saying is that I'm not willing to just trust the Bush Administration on anything any more, and so I wonder if it was really the same guy, and if it was, whether he was in fact a terrorist before we held him or is he one we manufactured.

It doesn't excuse the suicide bombing at all. But it certainly would be in our best interests to find out whether we're manufacturing the very thing we claim to be fighting.

But if you would rather just view me as weak on terror rather than opening your mind and thinking, feel free.

Liam.

[Liam]

(Not sure why HuffPo wouldn't let me reply to RJC's comment directly, but...)

RJC: Thanks!

[GhostintheMachine]

We let him go because of pressure from people like youo and the ACLU whining and crying about being nice to our terrorist detainees, ask Daniel Pearl if his captors afforded him his civil rights?