Hard core Al Qaeda member
Via LWJ
On Mar. 5, a review board set up to evaluate the status of Guantanamo detainees determined that Abdel Malik Ahmed Abdel Wahab Al Rahabi should remain in US custody. Al Rahabi is a Yemeni who was among the first detainees transferred to Guantanamo in early 2002.
In deciding that al Rahabi should remain in detention, the review board assessed his “potential threat upon transfer to Yemen.” The board found that he has “significant ties to al Qaeda, including his past role as a bodyguard for Osama Bin Laden and a prior relationship with the current amir of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.” The head of AQAP is Nasir al Wuhayshi, who once served as the aide-de-camp to bin Laden and is now the general manager of al Qaeda’s global operations.
Furthermore, the review board found, al Rahabi’s time “fighting on the frontlines, possible selection for a hijacking plot, and significant training” raised concerns.
The review board’s one-page unclassified summary does not make public the underlying evidence against al Rahabi. But declassified and leaked documents authored by Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) show how US officials compiled a dossier on him.
In particular, a leaked JTF-GTMO threat assessment, dated Apr. 28, 2008, details the evidence that led American authorities to consider al Rahabi such a risk. JTF-GTMO recommended at the time that al Rahabi be retained in the Department of Defense’s custody. The Yemeni was deemed a “high risk” and “likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests, and allies.”
As of 2008, al Rahabi had admitted little to interrogators and interviewers at Guantanamo. Al Rahabi continued to claim that he traveled to Afghanistan simply to teach the Koran. His “account is assessed to be false,” JTF-GTMO’s analysts wrote, finding that he was employing a cover story used by other detainees.
To fill in the details of al Rahabi’s life, American analysts relied on the testimony of other al Qaeda operatives in custody. Indeed, most of the evidence against al Rahabi comes from al Qaeda operatives who were captured after the 9/11 attacks.
Al Qaeda members questioned at Guantanamo or in the CIA’s detention and interrogation program provided key details about al Rahabi, including his role in a canceled hijacking operation that would have coincided with the 9/11 attacks.