US moves 11 Guantanamo Bay detainees to Oman

The transfer, which reportedly happened in the early hours on Monday, comes days before the accused mastermind of the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, is scheduled to plead guilty, following a deal with federal officials to avoid the death penalty.

Monday’s transfer of the Yemeni detainees is the largest to a single country at one time under President Joe Biden.

Efforts to resettle the group in Oman began years ago, but the US has said that Yemen, which is locked in a civil war, was too unstable for repatriation.

Those transferred from Guantanamo include Moath al-Alwi, who was cleared for release in 2022 and had become known for building model boats with objects found at the prison, and Shaqawi al Hajj, who went on repeated hunger strikes to protest his detention.

The men were cleared for transfer by federal national security review panels, which determined that doing so was “consistent with the national security interests of the United States”, the Defense Department said.

The transfer came less than a week after Ridah Bin Saleh al-Yazidi, one of the prison’s original detainees in January 2002, was repatriated to Tunisia.

The Defense Department said three of the 15 remaining detainees also are eligible for transfer.

The military prison is part of a US naval base complex in southeastern Cuba. It was established by the Bush administration in 2002, following the 9/11 attacks, to hold suspects captured in counter-terrorism operations. At its peak, it held about 800 detainees.

Controversy has centred around the treatment of detainees and how long they were held without being charged.

As president, Barack Obama pledged to close the prison during his terms. He said the prison is contrary to US values, undermining the nation’s standing in the world – a standing based on support for the rule of law.

Obama, who left office in 2017, also argued that its existence harms partnerships with countries needed to help the US fight terrorism and that it helps fuel the recruitment of jihadists.

But while in office, Obama faced opposition in Congress to shuttering the prison – some of it due to questions about what would happen to the existing prison population. He transferred or ordered the release of more than 100 detainees to other countries.

US Congress has not allowed the transfer of detainees to US states and has blocked their transfer to certain countries, including those with ongoing conflicts like Yemen.

Efforts to lower the prison’s population and close it halted under Donald Trump who signed an executive order to keep it open during his first term. Trump said efforts to release detainees or close the facility made the US look weak on terrorism.

Since taking office in 2021, President Joe Biden has worked to remove more detainees from the facility in hopes of shuttering it – though that appears unlikely before Trump takes office later this month.