Yemen al-Qaeda leader freed from Gitmo
At lease one leader of al-Qaeda branch in Yemen, where failed bomber of US-bound Christmas flight was allegedly trained, was freed from US prison in Guantanamo according to Pentagon list
At least one leader of al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen, where the failed bomber of a US-bound Christmas flight was allegedly trained, was freed from the US prison in Guantanamo, Cuba, according to a Pentagon list released in May.
The list names 27 ex-prisoners who resumed terrorist activities after being released from Guantanamo, including Said Ali al-Shihri, who was transferred to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and later implicated in the 2008 bombing of the US embassy in Yemen's capital Sanaa.
ABC Television named former al-Qaeda leader in Yemen, Muhammad Attik al-Harbi, as another unrepentant former Guantanamo prisoner.
Yemen's role as an al-Qaeda haven has come under renewed public scrutiny in the wake of a 23-year-old Nigerian's failed attempt to detonate a bomb on December 25 on a Northwest Airline plane as it approached to land in Detroit.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who boarded the plane in Amsterdam, was overpowered by passengers and crew and arrested on landing in Detroit.
Explosives worn by Abdulmutallab on Detroit-bound flight
American law enforcement officials, quoted anonymously by US media, have said Abdulmutallab
confessed to receiving specific training for the attack from an al-Qaeda bomb-maker in Yemen.
An al-Qaeda affiliate in the Arabian peninsula claimed on Monday it was behind the failed bombing and threatened new attacks on the West, US monitoring groups said.
The two-page statement which was accompanied by a picture of Abdulmutallab boasted that the "Nigerian brother... was able to breach all the modern and sophisticated technologies and checkpoints at the airports around the world." The US government, however, remains cautious in linking the suspect to al-Qaeda.
Yemen says attack suspect was in country
Yemen's government said Monday that Abdulmutallab visited Yemen this year, and that authorities were investigating his activities during his stay.
In a statement, the Yemeni Foreign Ministry says Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was in Yemen from early August until early December after receiving a visa to study Arabic in a school in Sanaa.
Monday's statement said Abdulmutallab had previously studied at the school, indicating it was not his first trip to Yemen.
It said he was granted a Yemeni visa after authorities were reassured that he had "several visas from a number of friendly countries," the statement said. It noted that Abdulmutallab had a valid visa to the United States, which he had visited in the past.
"Authorities are currently investigating who he was in contact with in Yemen and the results of the investigation will be delivered to those concerned with investigating the terror plot in the United States," the ministry said.
AFP and the Associated Press contributed to this report
