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July 6, 2009

Mullah released from Gitmo now Afghan Taliban leader against U.S. forces

Topics: Afghanistan, Political News and commentaries

Another one of those innocent Muslims being wrongly held at Guantanomo has returned to jihad to fight against United States forces: Mullah Sprung From GITMO Jail Now Leads Foe In Afghan Campaign by Seth G. Jones in the New York Post.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- As Marine Corps forces roll into southern Afghanistan, they face an enemy familiar to US officials -- Mullah Zakir, a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner who now leads a reconstituted Taliban.

Abdul Qayum Zakir, also known as Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, is from Helmand Province and has taken a circuitous route to become head of the radical Islamic group.

Zakir was a senior fighter during the Taliban regime in the 1990s. In a memorandum prepared for his administrative review board at Guantanamo, Zakir apparently "felt it would be fine to wage jihad against Americans, Jews, or Israelis if they were invading his country."

And he acknowledged that he was "called to fight jihad in approximately 1997," when he joined the Taliban.

In 2001, he surrendered to US and Afghan forces in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif as the regime was collapsing. He spent the next several years in custody, was transferred to Guantanamo around 2006, then to Afghanistan government custody in late 2007, and was eventually released around May 2008. American officials won't say why he was let go and have not released a photograph of him.

As Pamela Geller notes at Atlas Shrugs, speaking of the captured Taliban sent to Gitmo:

Obviously, they went to Afghanistan to wage jihad. And then when they got to Guantanamo, because of political correctness and the prevailing and unquestionable dogma that Islam is a religion of peace. nothing was done to disabuse them of their jihadist assumptions. On the contrary: those assumptions were reinforced by the respect and reverence that American personnel were ordered to show for the Qur'an -- the very book that had inspired these men to wage war against the United States in the first place.

In light of that, it is no surprise is that any Gitmo inmates return to jihad. It is only a surprise that more released Gitmo inmates don't return to jihad.

So much for political stupidity and playing Mr. Nice Guys. Look where that got us - we're back in the same boat fighting the same people all over again.

Posted by Richard at July 6, 2009 9:23 AM

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