Marathon Pundit: Yemenis could make Gitmo North more dangerous

One of Dick Durbin and Pat Quinn's selling points is a weak one--only about 100 Guantanamo Bay terrorists will be transferred to the proposed Gitmo North facility in Thomson, Illinois. But there are 200 of jihadists incarcerated at Cape Delta. What about the 100 others?

The Obama administration's plan is to repatriate them to Yemen--exactly where the Christmas bomb plot was hatched. AP paints a yucky Yemeni picture. For instance, a second-level leader of al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula has his base in Yemen.

As a prisoner at Guantanamo, Said Ali al-Shihri said he wanted freedom so he could go home to Saudi Arabia and work at his family's furniture store.

Instead, al-Shihri, who was released in 2007 under the Bush administration, is now deputy leader of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, a group that has claimed responsibility for the Christmas Day attempted bomb attack on a Detroit-bound airliner.

His potential involvement in the terrorist plot has raised new opposition to releasing Guantanamo Bay inmates, complicating President Barack Obama's pledge to close the military prison in Cuba. It also highlights the challenge of identifying the hard-core militants as the administration decides what to do with the remaining 198 prisoners.

Like other former Guantanamo detainees who have rejoined al-Qaida in Yemen, al-Shihri, 36, won his release despite jihadist credentials such as, in his case, urban warfare training in Afghanistan.

Some Gitmo inmates who have already been transferred to Yemen have "escaped." If the current batch of Yemenis end up in Thomson, it could mean double the trouble in northwestern Illinois.

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