Muhammaed Yasir Ahmed Taher
Born1980 (1980)[1]
Ibb, Yemen
DiedMarch 2, 2017(2017-03-02) (aged 36–37)
Yemen
Detained at Guantanamo
Other name(s) 
  • Mohammed Tahir[2]
  • Mohammad Ahmad Ali Tahar[2]
  • Yasir al-Silmi[2]
  • Yasir Ahmad al Tahar[2]
  • Muhammed Ahmad Ali Tahir al-Ibbi al-Dini[2]
  • Farabi[2]
  • Muhammed Tahir al-Sulami[2]
  • Muhammed Hammed Allah[2]
  • Yassir Ali Abdullah Ali Ahmed Al Sulaymi[2]
ISN679
Charge(s)No charge (extrajudicial detention)
StatusReleased

Muhammaed Yasir Ahmed Taher (1980 – March 2, 2017) was a citizen of Yemen, who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States's Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.[3] His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 679. American intelligence analysts estimate he was born in 1980, in Ibb, Yemen.

He was the younger brother of Ali Abdullah Ahmed, one of the three Guantanamo detainees who died in custody on June 10, 2006.[4][5]

He was repatriated on December 19, 2009.[6]

NBC News reported, on March 3, 2017, that he was killed by a missile launched from a surveillance drone on March 2, 2017.[7][8][9][10][11]

Background

Taher was apprehended by a mixed force of Pakistani and American counter-terrorism officials in March 2002.[12] He was captured in an off-campus residence provided for students of Salafi University in Faisalabad, Pakistan together with a dozen other foreign students. He claimed he was just a student at Salafi University, and had no ties to terrorism.

He faced the allegations that his photo was identified as someone who had been seen by an al Qaida member in Afghanistan, and that he had received a recruitment letter from the Taliban.[12]

Historian Andy Worthington, author of The Guantanamo Files, identified Tahar as an individual who informed the officers on his Combatant Status Review Tribunal that he had been informed, early in his detention, that he had been apprehended in error, and would soon be released.[12]


Official status reviews

Originally the Bush Presidency asserted that captives apprehended in the "war on terror" were not covered by the Geneva Conventions, and could be held indefinitely, without charge, and without an open and transparent review of the justifications for their detention.[13] In 2004 the United States Supreme Court ruled, in Rasul v. Bush, that Guantanamo captives were entitled to being informed of the allegations justifying their detention, and were entitled to try to refute them.

Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants

Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in a 3x5 meter trailer where the captive sat with his hands and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor.[14][15]

Following the Supreme Court's ruling the Department of Defense set up the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants.[13][16]

Scholars at the Brookings Institution, led by Benjamin Wittes, listed the captives still held in Guantanamo in December 2008, according to whether their detention was justified by certain common allegations:[17]

  • Mohmmad Ahmad Ali Tahar was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges ... are associated with both Al Qaeda and the Taliban."[17]
  • Mohmmad Ahmad Ali Tahar was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges that the following detainees stayed in Al Qaeda, Taliban or other guest- or safehouses."[17]
  • Mohmmad Ahmad Ali Tahar was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges that the following detainees were captured under circumstances that strongly suggest belligerency."[17]
  • Mohmmad Ahmad Ali Tahar was listed as one of the captives who was an "al Qaeda operative".[17]
  • Mohmmad Ahmad Ali Tahar was listed as one of the "34 [captives] admit to some lesser measure of affiliation—like staying in Taliban or Al Qaeda guesthouses or spending time at one of their training camps."[17]
  • Mohmmad Ahmad Ali Tahar was listed as one of the captives who had "stayed at Taliban or Al Qaeda guesthouses."[17]
  • Mohmmad Ahmad Ali Tahar was listed as one of the captives who had admitted "some form of associational conduct."[17]

Tahar chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.[18][19] In response to a court order the Department of Defense was forced to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request and publish a sixteen page summarized transcript from Tahar's Tribunal.

Tahar chose to participate in his Administrative Review Board hearing.[20] In response to a court order the Department of Defense responded to a Freedom of Information Act request and published a twelve page summarized transcript from his first annual Review Board in the spring of 2006.

On January 9, 2009, the Department of Defense released two heavily redacted memos, from his 2007 Administrative Review Board, to Gordon England, the Designated Civilian Official.[21][22]

Habeas petition

A petition of habeas corpus was filed on his behalf. Over two hundred captives had habeas corpus petitions filed on their behalf before the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 and the Military Commissions Act of 2006 closed off the captives' access to the US civilian justice system. On June 12, 2008, in its ruling on the Boumediene v. Bush habeas corpus petition, the United States Supreme Court over-rode the Congress and Presidency, and restored the captives' access to habeas corpus.

On July 18, 2008, Pardiss Kebriaei filed a "Petitioner's status report" on Mohammed Ahmed Taher's behalf in Civil Action No. 06-cv-1684.[5][23][24]

Mohammad Ahmad Taher had a DTA appeal filed on his behalf.[5] The United States Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 and the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Both these Acts included provisions to close of Guantanamo captives' ability to file habeas corpus petitions.[25]

The Detainee Treatment Act included a provision to proscribe Guantanamo captives who had not already initiated a habeas corpus petition from initiating new habeas corpus petitions.[25] The Act included provision for an alternate, more limited form of appeal for captives. Captives were allowed to submit limited appeals to panels of three judges in a Washington DC appeals court. The appeals were limited—they could not be based on general principles of human rights. They could only be based on arguments that their Combatant Status Review Tribunal had not followed the rules laid out for the operation of Combatant Status Review Tribunals.

Nine months later Congress passed the Military Commissions Act.[25] This Act contained provision to close off all the remaining outstanding habeas corpus petitions. After the closure of the habeas corpus petitions some Guantanamo captives had appeals in the Washington DC court submitted on their behalf, as described in the Detainee Treatment Act.

The DTA appeals progressed very slowly.[25] Initially the Department of Justice argued that the captive's lawyers, and the judges on the panel, needed consider no more evidence than the "Summary of Evidence memos" prepared for the captives' CSR Tribunals. By September 2007, the Washington DC court ruled that the evidence that formed the basis of the summaries had to be made available.

The Administration then argued that it was not possible to present the evidence the Tribunals considered in 2004—because the evidence had not been preserved.[25]

Only one captive, a Uyghur captive named Hufaiza Parhat, had his DTA appeal run to completion. On June 20, 2008, his three judge panel concluded that his Tribunal had erred and that he never should have been confirmed as an enemy combatant.

Formerly secret Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment

On April 25, 2011, whistleblower organization WikiLeaks published formerly secret assessments drafted by Joint Task Force Guantanamo analysts.[26][27] His Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment was drafted on March 20, 2008.[2] It was signed by camp commandant Rear Admiral Mark H. Buzby. He recommended continued detention.

Charlie Savage noted that Tahar's assessment said Guantanamo authorities had intercepted a letter he wrote to his family depicting his brother as a martyr.[28]

Following reports of his killing Associated Press reporter Lolita C. Baldor quoted extensively from the assessment's description as to why Tahar would represent a risk, if released.[29]

Press reports

Canadian journalist, and former special assistant to US President George W. Bush, David Frum, published an article based on his own reading of the transcripts from the Combatant Status Review Tribunals, on November 11, 2006.[30] It was Frum who coined the term "Axis of evil" for use in a speech he wrote for Bush. Tahar's transcript was one of the nine Frum briefly summarized. His comment on Tahar was:

Another detainee, a Yemeni, explained that he had come to Pakistan to study medicine at a university. Unfortunately, the particular university he had selected lacked any medical faculty. He ended up instead studying Koran in a student guesthouse – and when one of his housemates suggested they take a sightseeing tour of Afghanistan, he agreed to go along. The housemate's name? He had forgotten it.

Frum came to the conclusion that all nine of the men whose transcript he summarized had obviously lied.[30] He did not, however, state how he came to the conclusion they lied. His article concluded with the comment:

But what's the excuse of those in the West who succumb so easily to the deceptions of terrorists who cannot invent even half-way plausible lies?

Repatriation

Carol Rosenberg, writing in the Miami Herald reported that Muhammaed Yasir Ahmed Taher [sic] was one of twelve men transferred from Guantanamo on December 19, 2009.[6] The other eleven men were: Ayman Batarfi, Jamal Alawi Mari, Farouq Ali Ahmed, Fayad Yahya Ahmed al Rami, Riyad Atiq Ali Abdu al Haf, Abdul Hafiz, Sharifullah, Mohamed Rahim, Mohammed Hashim, Ismael Arale and Mohamed Suleiman Barre. Abdul Hafiz, Sharifullah, Mohamed Rahim and Mohammed Hashim were Afghans. Asmael Arale and Mohamed Suleiman Barre were Somalis. The other five men were fellow Yemenis.

Death

He was killed by a missile launched from a surveillance drone on March 2, 2017.[7][8][9][10][11] Lucas Tomlinson, of Fox News, counted his death twice, being confused by reports that listed him as both Mohammed Tahar and Yasir al Silmi.[31]

This missile's primary target was an individual named either "Usayd al-Adani", or "Mossad al-Adani", or "Sa'ad Atef", reported to be an experienced bomb-maker, and AQAP's emir of either Abyan Province, Shabwah Province, or all of Yemen.[7][9][10][32][33][34][35][36]

References

  1. ↑ JTF- GTMO Detainee Assessment Department of Defense
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "Yasir Ahmed Ali Taher: Guantanamo Bay detainee file on Yasir Ahmed Ali Taher, US9YM-000679DP, passed to the Telegraph by Wikileaks". The Telegraph (UK). 2011-04-27. Retrieved 2016-07-09.
  3. ↑ OARDEC. "List of Individuals Detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from January 2002 through May 15, 2006" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2006-05-15. Works related to List of Individuals Detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from January 2002 through May 15, 2006 at Wikisource
  4. ↑ Nabil Sultan (2006-06-21). "YEMEN: Family, MPs and Lawyers Refute Gitmo Suicide Story". Taiz, Yemen: Inter Press Service. Retrieved 2017-03-07. He said there were many Yemeni detainees at Guantánamo, a U.S. enclave in Cuba, and at other prisons inside and outside the United States – particularly Bagram air base in Afghanistan – including Yasser al-Salami (Salah's brother), Abdul-Rahim al-Nasheri and Ramzi bin al-Shaiba.
  5. 1 2 3 Pardiss Kebriaei (2008-07-18). "Guantanamo Bay Detainee Litigation: Doc 155 -- Petitioner's status report" (PDF). United States Department of Justice. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2011-10-02. Retrieved 2008-09-28.
  6. 1 2 Carol Rosenberg (2009-12-19). "Guantánamo detention census drops to 198". Miami Herald. Archived from the original on 2011-05-22.
  7. 1 2 3 Courtney Kube (2017-03-03). "Yemen Strike Kills Al Qaeda Bombmaker, Officials Say". NBC News. Retrieved 2017-03-06. The death of Mossad al-Adani, al Qaeda's emir of Abyan governorate and an explosives expert, is a "blow to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula," according to the officials. Also killed in that same strike was a former Guantanamo detainee, Yasir al-Silmi. He was at Guantanamo from 2002 to 2009.
  8. 1 2 Lucas Tomlinson (2017-03-07). "Ex-Gitmo detainee killed in US airstrike in Yemen, Pentagon says". Fox News. Retrieved 2017-03-06. Yasir al-Silmi, who was held at Guantanamo Bay from 2002-2009, was killed in airstrikes on March 2, Davis said.
  9. 1 2 3 Missy Ryan, Julie Tate (2016-03-06). "U.S. air campaign in Yemen kills former Guantanamo detainee". Washington Post. Archived from the original on March 7, 2017. Silmi, a Yemeni national who had also gone by the name Mohamed Tahar, was arrested in Pakistan in 2002, and handed over to U.S. authorities in May of that year. While U.S. officials suspected him of having ties to al-Qaeda plots, Silmi, like the vast majority of the more than 700 inmates who have been held at Guantanamo since 2002, was never charged with a crime.
  10. 1 2 3 "Former Guantanamo detainee killed in US air strike in Yemen". BBC News. 2017-03-06. Retrieved 2017-03-06. He was killed in the same strike as Usayd al-Adani, "a long-time Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula explosives expert and facilitator who served as the organisation's emir," Cpt Davis said.
  11. 1 2 Sam Dorman. "U.S. Airstrike Kills Ex-Guantanamo Detainee in Yemen Released by Obama Admin". Free Beacon. Retrieved 2017-03-06. Al-Silmi's death came as the U.S. has launched over 40 airstrikes over the course of five nights in Yemen.
  12. 1 2 3 Andy Worthington (2009-05-19). "Guantánamo: A Prison Built On Lies". Retrieved 2017-03-07. In hearings at Guantánamo, several of the men have pointed out that they were told shortly after their capture that they had been seized by mistake. Mohammed Tahir, one of the Yemeni students, explained, 'The army translator and the interrogator from the Pakistani intelligence said, "yes, all of what this man said … about his story in Pakistan is correct, and therefore that is why we are going to give him back his passport that we took" … I was really surprised that the American intelligence refused all of these proofs and they said no. "We still need him," they said, and then they took me.'
  13. 1 2 "U.S. military reviews 'enemy combatant' use". USA Today. 2007-10-11. Archived from the original on 2007-10-23. Critics called it an overdue acknowledgment that the so-called Combatant Status Review Tribunals are unfairly geared toward labeling detainees the enemy, even when they pose little danger. Simply redoing the tribunals won't fix the problem, they said, because the system still allows coerced evidence and denies detainees legal representation.
  14. ↑ Neil A. Lewis (2004-11-11). "Guantánamo Prisoners Getting Their Day, but Hardly in Court". New York Times. Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Archived from the original on 2009-04-23. Retrieved 2017-02-21.
  15. ↑ Mark Huband (2004-12-11). "Inside the Guantánamo Bay hearings: Barbarian "Justice" dispensed by KGB-style "military tribunals"". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 2016-03-09. Retrieved 2017-02-21.
  16. ↑ "Q&A: What next for Guantanamo prisoners?". BBC News. 2002-01-21. Archived from the original on 23 November 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-24.
  17. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Benjamin Wittes; Zaathira Wyne (2008-12-16). "The Current Detainee Population of Guantánamo: An Empirical Study" (PDF). The Brookings Institution. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-05-19. Retrieved 2010-02-16.
  18. ↑ OARDEC (December 7, 2004). "Summarized Unsworn Detainee Statement (but see page 2 where the detainee agrees to take his own oath and makes a sworn statement)" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. pp. 84–99. Retrieved 2008-03-06.
  19. ↑ OARDEC (December 7, 2004). "Summarized Unsworn Detainee Statement (but see page 2 where the detainee agrees to take his own oath and makes a sworn statement)" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. pp. 100–116. Retrieved 2008-03-06.
  20. ↑ OARDEC. "Summary of Administrative Review Board Proceedings of ISN 579" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. pp. 71–82. Retrieved 2008-03-06.
  21. ↑ OARDEC (2007-09-10). "Administrative Review Board assessment and recommendation ICO ISN 679" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. p. 539. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-09-01. Retrieved 2009-02-11.
  22. ↑ OARDEC (2007-05-08). "Classified Record of Proceedings and basis of Administrative Review Board recommendation for ISN 679" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. pp. 540–547. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-09-01. Retrieved 2009-02-11.
  23. ↑ Pardiss Kebriaei (2008-09-29). "Guantanamo Bay Detainee Litigation: Doc 594 -- Notice of Authorization" (PDF). United States Department of Justice. Retrieved 2008-12-26.
  24. ↑ Lisa M. Kaas (2008-07-25). "Petitioners seeking habeas corpus relief in relation to prior detentions at Guantanamo Bay: Response to order to show cause" (PDF). United States Department of Justice. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-22. Retrieved 2008-08-13.
  25. 1 2 3 4 5 Dahlia Lithwick (2007-10-17). "The Dog Ate My Evidence: What happens when the government can't re-create the case against you?". Slate magazine. Archived from the original on 2008-09-16. Retrieved 2008-08-18. Is the government taking the position that this evidence is both critically, vitally, and hugely important to national security, but also, um, lost? Not quite. But it is saying that the 'record' relied upon to lock up men for years is somehow so scattered among various Department of Defense 'components, and all relevant federal agencies' that it cannot be pulled together for a review.
  26. ↑ Christopher Hope, Robert Winnett, Holly Watt, Heidi Blake (2011-04-27). "WikiLeaks: Guantanamo Bay terrorist secrets revealed -- Guantanamo Bay has been used to incarcerate dozens of terrorists who have admitted plotting terrifying attacks against the West – while imprisoning more than 150 totally innocent people, top-secret files disclose". The Telegraph (UK). Archived from the original on 2012-07-15. Retrieved 2012-07-13. The Daily Telegraph, along with other newspapers including The Washington Post, today exposes America's own analysis of almost ten years of controversial interrogations on the world's most dangerous terrorists. This newspaper has been shown thousands of pages of top-secret files obtained by the WikiLeaks website.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  27. ↑ "WikiLeaks: The Guantánamo files database". The Telegraph (UK). 2011-04-27. Archived from the original on 2015-06-26. Retrieved 2012-07-10.
  28. ↑ Charlie Savage, Andrew W. Lehren (2011-04-25). "As Acts of War or Despair, Suicides Rattle a Prison". New York Times. p. A13. Retrieved 2017-03-07. And Mr. Ahmed's brother, Muhammaed Yasir Ahmed Taher, who was also a detainee until his repatriation in 2009, wrote to a family member depicting Mr. Ahmed "as a martyr," according to an assessment. An analyst concluded that both brothers "viewed the suicide as a continuance of their jihad against the US."
  29. ↑ Lolita C. Baldor (2017-03-06). "US airstrikes kill former Guantanamo detainee in Yemen". Star Tribune. Archived from the original on 2017-03-06. Retrieved 2017-03-10. The 12-page memo, signed by Rear Adm. Mark Buzby, who was commander at the detention center at the time, raised Tahar's risk level from medium to high.
  30. 1 2 David Frum (November 11, 2006). "Gitmo Annotated". National Review. Archived from the original on July 14, 2011. Retrieved 2007-04-23.
  31. ↑ Lucas Tomlinson (2017-03-07). "2 former Gitmo detainees killed in US airstrikes in Yemen". Fox News. Archived from the original on 2017-03-07. U.S. airstrikes against Al Qaeda militants in Yemen last week killed two former Guantanamo Bay detainees, the Pentagon said Monday. Mohamed Tahar and Yasir al-Silmi were among those killed in recent U.S. airstrikes on terror targets in Yemen. Tahar and al-Silmi were both released from the detention center in 2009.
  32. ↑ Ivan Aditya (2017-03-04). "Ahli Bom Al Qaeda Tewas" [Al Qaeda bomb expert killed] (in Indonesian). Krjobja. Retrieved 2017-03-10. Menurut pejabat keamanan AS serangan udara itu menewaskan Mossad al-Adani, Emir al-Qaeda di wilayah Abyan dan ahli bahan peledak. Kematian al-Adani diyakini akan menjadi pukulan telak bagi kelompok teroris bentukan Osama bin Laden.
  33. ↑ "US air raids target al-Qaeda in Yemen, wound civilians". Al Jazeera. 2017-03-03. Retrieved 2017-03-10. The air raids also struck the home of al-Qaeda's commander in the area, Saad Atef, tribal sources told the AFP news agency.
  34. ↑ "Bekas tahanan Guantanamo terbunuh dalam serangan AS di Yaman" [Former Guantanamo detainees killed in US attack in Yemen] (in Malay). Washington DC: BH Online. 2017-03-07. Retrieved 2017-03-11. Yang turut terbunuh, pakar letupan, Usayd al-Adani. Dia juga berperanan sebagai ketua daerah kumpulan al-Qaeda di Semenanjung Arab.
  35. ↑ "Bekas Napi Guantanamo Tewas dalam Serangan Udara AS di Yaman" [Former Guantanamo Inmates Killed in US Air Attacks in Yemen] (in Indonesian). Dunia. 2017-03-07. Retrieved 2017-03-11. Belum diketahui apakah Yasir al-Silmi menjadi salah satu target serangan, tetapi Kapten Davis kepada Reuters mengatakan bahwa dia bukanlah target kelas kakap.
  36. ↑ "US Strikes Pound Qaida for Second Day". Naharnet. 2017-03-03. Retrieved 2017-03-11. Yemeni officials said at least 12 suspected militants were killed in those strikes, which came barely one month after a botched US commando raid against the group left multiple civilians and a Navy SEAL dead.
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