Four Afghan Guantanamo Bay Detention Center prisoners freed Saturday Dec 20,2014

 

The Pentagon said Saturday Dec 20,2014 that four Afghans - Mohammed Zahir, Shawali Khan, Abdul Ghani and Khi Ali Gul from the Guantanamo Bay detention center have been returned to their home country in what U.S. officials are citing as a sign of their confidence in new Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

Obama administration officials said they worked quickly to fulfil the request from Ghani, in office just three months, to return the four — long cleared for release — as a kind of reconciliation and mark of improved U.S.-Afghan relations

The council also requested the repatriation of the eight Afghans who are among the 132 detainees remaining at Guantanamo.Guantanamo now holds the lowest number of detainees since shortly after it opened nearly 13 years ago in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Those remaining include 64 approved for transfer.

Note
The move is the latest in a series of transfers during the past two months. President Barack Obama has been pushing to reduce the number of detainees as he tries to make progress toward his goal of closing the globally condemned detention center for suspected terrorists