The US sends 11 Guantánamo prisoners to Oman and only 15 remain in the detention center

Eleven Yemenis who had been detained at the Guantánamo naval base in Cuba for more than two decades without being charged have been transferred to Oman, the Pentagon announced Monday.

The transfer represents the most recent and largest attempt by the US federal government to remove the remaining detainees from Guantánamo who were never charged with a crime, just weeks before the end of Joe Biden’s presidency.

With the most recent releases, only 15 people remain detained at Guantánamo. It is the lowest number since 2002, when the administration of President George W. Bush transformed the naval base into a prison for men, mostly Muslims, who had been detained in different parts of the world as part of what the United States called as his “war on terrorism.”

The US invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq and military and covert operations elsewhere were launched after the al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001.

The men included in the most recent transfer include Shaqawi al Hajj, who went on repeated hunger strikes at Guantanamo in protest of his 21 years in prison, which were preceded by two years of detention and torture in CIA custody. , according to the US-based Center for Constitutional Rights.

Human rights groups and some lawmakers have tried to pressure the U.S. government to close the Guantánamo detention center or, failing that, release all detainees who were never charged with a crime. At its busiest, Guantánamo housed about 800 detainees.

The Biden administration and its predecessors have said they are making efforts to find suitable countries willing to receive those detainees. Many of those left in Guantánamo were from Yemen, a country divided by war and under the control of the Houthis, allies of Iran.

Following the transfer announced Monday, six men who have never been charged with a crime remain at Guantánamo, as well as two convicted and sentenced inmates, and seven others accused of participating in the 2001 attacks, the 2000 USS Cole bombing, and the attacks in Bali in 2002.

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