30 detainees down, 127 to go, according to the Pentagon:
CBN NEWS – The Pentagon has released five more detainees from the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The prisoners were taken into custody in Pakistan for suspected ties with al Qaeda. They’d been held at Guantanamo for a dozen years, but were never formally charged.
A government task force cleared the men for release but said they could not be returned to their homelands. The prisoners, two from Tunisia and three from Yemen, were sent to Kazakhstan.
While numbers of countries have accepted Guantanamo detainees for resettlement in the past, this is a first Kazakhstan.
Here are their identities:
Administration officials identified the three Yemenis released as Asim Thabit Abdullah al-Khalaqi, Muhammad Ali Husayn Khanayna and Sabri Mohammad Ibrahim Al Qurashi. They were captured by Pakistani troops in 2001 and handed over to the American authorities. The three have been at Guantánamo for more than 12 years and were recommended for release almost five years ago by Mr. Obama’s national security team.
The Tunisians were identified as Adel al-Hakeemy, who had been held for 12 years 10 months, and Abdullah bin Ali al-Lufti, held for 11 years and 10 months.