WASHINGTON ? President-elect Obama's advisers are crafting plans to close the Guantanamo Bay prison and prosecute terrorism suspects in the U.S., a plan the Bush administration said Monday was easier said than done. Under the plan being crafted inside Obama's camp, some detainees would be released and others would be charged in U.S. courts, where they would receive constitutional rights and open trials.

But, underscoring the difficult decisions Obama must make to fulfill his pledge of shutting down Guantanamo, the plan could require the creation of a new legal system to handle the classified information inherent in some of the most sensitive cases.

Many of the about 250 Guantanamo detainees are cleared for release, but the Bush administration has not able been to find a country willing to take them.

Advisers participating directly in the planning spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans aren't final.

The plan being developed by Obama's team has been championed by legal scholars from both political parties. But as details surfaced Monday, it drew criticism from Democrats who oppose creating a new legal system and from Republicans who oppose bringing terrorism suspects to the U.S. mainland.

Obama foreign policy adviser Denis McDonough said the president-elect wants Guantanamo closed, but no decision has been made "about how and where to try the detainees, and there is no process in place to make that decision until his national security and legal teams are assembled."

Obama seeks a break from the Bush administration, which established military tribunals to prosecute detainees at the Navy base in Cuba and strongly opposes bringing prisoners to the United States. At the White House, spokeswoman Dana Perino said Monday that President Bush has faced many challenges in trying to close the prison.

"We've tried very hard to explain to people how complicated it is. When you pick up people off the battlefield that have a terrorist background, it's not just so easy to let them go," Perino said. "These issues are complicated, and we have put forward a process that we think would work in order to put them on trial through military tribunals."




WASHINGTON – A Saudi militant who was released from Guantanamo Bay after six years of confinement is now a top figure in the Yemeni branch of al-Qaida, a U.S. counterterrorism official confirmed Friday.

Said Ali al-Shihri was released in 2007 to the Saudi government for rehabilitation. He re-emerged this week, identified by a militant-leaning Web site as a top deputy in "al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula," a Yemeni offshoot of the terror group headed by Osama bin Laden.

The Yemeni branch has been implicated in several attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Yemen's capital Sana.

Al-Shihri is one of a small number of deputies in the group, the U.S. counter-terror official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive intelligence.

The militant Web site, which referred to al-Shihri under his terror nom de guerre, "Abu Sayyaf al-Shihri," also revealed his Guantanamo prisoner number, 372.

The announcement from the militant site came the same day that President Barack Obama signed an executive order directing the closure of the jail at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within a year.

A key question facing Obama's new administration is what to do with the 245 prisoners still confined at Guantanamo. That means finding new detention facilities for hard-core prisoners while trying to determine which detainees are harmless enough to release.

At least 18 former Guantanamo detainees have "returned to the fight" and another 43 are suspected of resuming terrorist activities, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said on Jan. 13. He declined to provide the identity of the former detainees or what their terrorist activities were.

It is unclear whether al-Shihri's name would be a new addition to that list of 61.

The Internet site, an online magazine published by al-Qaida affiliates, announced that al-Shihri is the group's second-in-command in Yemen. "He managed to leave the land of the two shrines (Saudi Arabia) and join his brothers in al-Qaida," the statement said.

Included in the site's material was a message to Yemen's populace from al-Qaida figure Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's top deputy.

According to Pentagon documents, al-Shihri was stopped at a Pakistani border crossing in December 2001 with injuries from an airstrike and recuperated at a hospital in Quetta for a month and a half. Within days of leaving the hospital, he became one of the first detainees sent to Guantanamo.

Al-Shihri allegedly traveled to Afghanistan two weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, provided money to other fighters and trained in urban warfare at a camp north of Kabul, according to a summary of the evidence against him from U.S. military review panels at Guantanamo Bay.

An alleged travel coordinator for al-Qaida, he was also accused of meeting extremists in Mashad, Iran, and briefing them on how to enter Afghanistan, according to the Defense Department documents.

Al-Shihri, however, said he traveled to Iran to buy carpets for his store in Riyadh. He said he felt bin Laden had no business representing Islam, denied any links to terrorism, and expressed interest in rejoining his family in Saudi Arabia.

Yemen is rapidly re-emerging as a terrorist battleground and potential base of operations for al-Qaida and is a main concern for U.S. counterterrorism officials. Al-Qaida in Yemen conducted an "unprecedented number of attacks" in 2008 and is likely to be a launching pad for attacks against Saudi Arabia, outgoing CIA Director Michael Hayden said in November.

The most recent attack, in September, killed 16 people. It followed a March mortar attack, and two attacks against Yemen's presidential compound in late April.

The impoverished country on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula has a weak central government and a powerful tribal system. That leaves large lawless areas open for terrorist training and operations.

Yemen was also the site of the 2000 USS Cole bombing that killed 17 American sailors. Seventeen suspects in the attack were arrested; ten of them escaped Yemen's jails in 2003. One of the primary suspects in the attack, Jamal al-Badawi, escaped jail in 2004. He was taken back into custody last fall under pressure from the U.S. government.


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