Man released from Gitmo conducted suicide attack in Mosul [Updated]

Abdallah Saleh Ali Al Ajmi

Abdallah Saleh Ali Al Ajmi was a Kuwaiti citizen who deserted from the Kuwaiti army to join Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. He was captured there in 2002 and held in Guantanamo Bay until November 2005, when he was released after numerous appeals by high-powered attorneys, as well as Al-Ajmi's continued insistence of his innocence. He was handed over to Kuwaiti authorities, and put on trial. There he was free on bail until his acquittal in July 2006, where he was freed for good. There is a big gap in reporting on what happened after that, but sometime between July 2006 and April 2008 he crossed the border into Iraq, and was one of four suicide bombers that carried out attacks in Mosul, killing nine people.

There's not much debate that he did it. Both US authorities as well as Al-Ajmi's own family acknowledges it, calling him a "martyr".

I think it's important to keep this in mind the next time someone cries about all the "innocents" being held at Gitmo. For a very recent example, people like Nicholas Kristoff at the New York Times: (emphasis mine)

My Sunday column is about the remaining 270 prisoners at Guantanamo, which is a national disgrace. One reason is simply the injustice of keeping innocent people in abusive conditions — a far harsher regime than that faced by convicted murderers in the United States.

Talk about embarrassingly bad timing; that column came out very shortly before the news on Al-Ajmi. There was a huge number of responses in the comments section, but as soon as someone mentioned Al-Ajmi, the comments dropped off pretty quick. Neither Kristoff or anyone else wanted to address that issue.

I did read several people suggesting that the attack was Al-Ajmi's revenge for his time in Guantanamo. His former attorney, the gullible Tom Wilner, claims the experience at Gitmo may have been what "radicalized" him (much more on Al-Ajmi's attorneys at the Mudville Gazette). There's only one problem with these arguments - the suicide attacks didn't target Americans, but Iraqi army, police, and Shiites. None of them had anything to do with his Gitmo detention. Moreover, if he wanted to take out revenge on the United States, there are thousands of ways to attack the US without getting yourself killed. But to a radical Islamicist, there is only one way to martyrdom and Paradise - death.

During his hearing he said this:

I never meant harm to anybody. I never attacked anybody. I don't have a grudge against the Americans. It is up to you. You are the president [of the panel] and you will do whatever you wish.

I don't support keeping prisoners in Guantanamo forever. But I am fed up with limousine liberals and ivory-tower academics who are so easily duped by Al-Qaeda (yet again). As a result of this mistake, several innocent people are now dead. Think about that.

UPDATE:
In the New York Times, of all places, there is some more information on Al-Ajmi:

In the tape made before his suicide attack he said he was detained in the Pakistani tribal areas. He said he was then held in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and flown to Guantánamo, where, he said, he was held naked.

In both his suicide tape and the chat room transcript, Mr. Ajmi describes the Americans’ desecration of the Koran and maltreatment of detainees, in what appears to have been an attempt to prod fellow Muslims to action. He said that detainees were beaten, given drugs and used “for experiments.”

“The Americans delighted in insulting our prayer and Islam and they insulted the Koran and threw it in dirty places,” he said.
...

His last thoughts were to encourage militants to avenge those who are in detention.

“I urge you, my brothers, support them with suicide operations,” he said. “Your captive brothers wish they could fight for the cause of God. You are free. It is your duty to free your Muslim brothers from the hands of the polytheists and infidels.”

These statements were tailor-made to inflame both anti-US leftists and jihadists alike. Notice:

1) His insistence that he was captured in Pakistan (which is extremely unlikely)
2) His charging crimes that are particularly offensive to Muslims, such as desecrating the Koran and insulting Islam.
3) His charge that they were used "for experiments" which feeds right into the conspiracy theory crowd.

Of course, he doesn't explain the discrepancy between these and his earlier statements at Gitmo.

Today, Defense Secretary Robert Gates responded to the Al-Ajmi case, showing that he is at least aware of the problem:

"There are a lot of prisoners down there, frankly, that we would be prepared to turn over to their home government, but the home government isn't prepared to receive them, or we don't have any confidence that if they still need to be incarcerated, that the home government will keep them incarcerated,"

The silence on this case from the leftist blogosphere is deafening. Prof Cole, naturally, chose to omit it in his regular rundown on events in the Middle East. If we are going to have an honest discussion on Gitmo and Middle East events, then we should discuss the whole picture, not just cherry-picked items that support only one side of the argument.



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