Dozens of released Guantanamo detainees have returned to the battlefield, US Senator Dianne Feinstein said on Sunday, as she urged the Barack Obama administration not to release more inmates from the war-on-terror prison camp.What happened to the line that all (or most) of the inmates were just innocent Moose limbs, who were in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Feinstein said this while talking on a television programme. She said a third of former inmates at the US naval base have returned to fight against US interests. She added they hailed from Yemen, which is the new focal point in the US fight against terrorism.
"I think at least 24 or 28 are confirmed returned to the battlefield in Yemen, and a number are suspected ... If you combine the suspected and the confirmed, the number I have is 74 detainees who have gone back into the fight," said Feinstein, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Not rehabilitation: "I think the Gitmo experience is not one that leads to rehabilitation," she added.
Her views were seconded by Congressman Peter Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.
"These people are released and a number of them go back to the battlefield. They form the corps of people who want to attack the United States. It's a national security, homeland security issue," he said.
These remarks came just days after a Pentagon spokesman confirmed that an increasing number of former detainees from the US prison in Guantanamo have forged links to terrorist groups after their release. But he had said last week that the figure remained "classified". However, he added that according to a report by the Defence Department, 14 percent of the detainees were suspected of having forged ties with terrorists.
The issue has taken on heightened importance after a failed attack on a US airliner on Christmas Day was tied to Al Qaeda's branch in Yemen, where two former Guantanamo detainees were believed to be acting as senior leaders.
President Barack Obama on Tuesday suspended transfers of Guantanamo detainees to Yemen following the Christmas Day incident.
The Obama administration remains under intense pressure however from domestic critics not to release any of the remaining 198 detainees at Guantanamo, which include includes an estimated 91 Yemenis, amid rising fear in the United States regarding terrorism.