Freed Gitmo prisoner returns to al-Qaida

SANAA, Yemen, Jan. 23 (UPI) -- A militant released from the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military prison a year ago has emerged as a leader of al-Qaida's Yemeni branch, U.S. military leaders said.

Said Ali al-Shihri's position in al-Qaida's hierarchy points up potential complications in accomplishing President Barack Obama's executive order that shutters the detention facility within a year, officials told The New York Times. Shihri was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007, reportedly going through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with al-Qaida in Yemen.

"The lesson here is, whoever receives former Guantanamo detainees needs to keep a close eye on them," an official told the Times.

The report comes as Republican members of Congress criticized the plan to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp without measures for dealing with current detainees. Obama also signed an executive order Thursday that calls for an interagency task force that would, among other things, consider how to handle detainees as the camp's closing progresses.

A Yemeni journalist who interviewed al-Qaida's leaders in Yemen in 2008 confirmed Thursday that the deputy leader was Shihri, the former Guantanamo detainee. The journalist told the Times Shihri had described to him his journey from Cuba to Yemen and supplied his Guantanamo detention number, which Pentagon documents said was correct.