Former GITMO detainee now al-Qaida brass

WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- A former Guantanamo Bay detainee released to Saudi Arabia in 2006 has become a top ideologue for al-Qaida in the Arabian peninsula, an intelligence review said.

Pakistani officials captured Ibrahim Suleiman al-Rubaish in 2001 and turned him over to U.S. officials who then sent him to the naval detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Rubaish while in U.S. custody at Guantanamo told his interrogators he received training at al-Farouq camp run by al-Qaida near Kandahar, Afghanistan, prior to the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

He was transferred to Saudi Arabia in 2006 where he was placed in a national rehabilitation project.

At some point, he escaped across the southern border of Saudi Arabia into Yemen and has now emerged as a top theologian for al-Qaida, the online Long War Journal reports.

His rank as a top ideologue in al-Qaida puts him in charge of countering the theological arguments from the Saudi regime and his statements have been used as justification to target top officials in Riyadh, the report adds.

Riyadh placed him on its list of most-wanted terrorists in February. Two of his associates were reportedly killed by Yemeni forces during their simmering battle with al-Houthi rebels in the north of the country.