GITMO Uyghurs Are Jihadis

By Clare M. Lopez

With all the recent attention focused on where and how to release Guantanamo Bay detainees, the case of 17 imprisoned Uyghurs has grabbed headlines again. Massachusetts Democratic Congressmen Jim McGovern and Bill Delahunt think that at least some of these Uyghurs should be resettled right here in the United States (U.S.), maybe even in the Virginia suburbs. Speaking in late May 2009 at a world assembly of Uyghurs at the U.S. Capitol, Delahunt offered some reassuring words: “The Uyghur people are not enemies of America. In fact, I know you admire our fundamental ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness….” How quaint. And how dangerously wrong.

The Uyghurs held at GITMO were captured while fleeing a terror training camp in eastern Afghanistan that was run by the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), a splinter faction of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). ETIM is listed as a terrorist organization by the governments of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Kazakhstan, Pakistan, and the U.S., as well as the United Nations. The TIP may also be another name for the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), an Islamic terrorist group opposed to the secular regime of Uzbekistan President Islom Karimov and dedicated to the establishment of Islamic rule there and across Central Asia. Heavily suppressed in Uzbekistan, the IMU may have been eradicated inside that country, but its fighters have surfaced in Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and elsewhere. Many of them joined the Taliban in Afghanistan pre-2001 and remain a presence in terrorist training camps along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Read more ...

Source: FSM
Jim McGovern
Bill Delahunt
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Coming Soon To A 'Hood Near You: Gitmo (Ex?)Terrorists

How would you like your family’s next-door neighbor to be a former Guantanamo Bay inmate who was trained in a military camp in pre-9/11 Afghanistan? Would it matter if they were declared no longer to be an “enemy combatant” by the Pentagon?

That’s the fundamental question that ought to be going through the minds of Northern Virginia residents this week, amid news reports - including our own Daily News exclusive today - that a group from Gitmo may soon be making house in the D.C. suburbs. Officials tell The News the ethnic Turk Muslims from China, known as Uyghurs, will be settled in a Uyghur community in Fairfax, Va. - if Team Obama gives the thumbs up.

While Republicans have unarguably been making political hay out of this news - as well as the release of the Bush-era “torture memos” and President Obama’s plan to close Gitmo by January - they are indeed representing the views of many counterterror officials by objecting strenuously to plans to resettle a half-dozen former detainees in the D.C. suburbs.

“There are people in the intelligence community who are concerned about the Uyghurs from a security standpoint,” Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.), ranking GOPer on the Homeland Security Committee, told The Mouth. “They have very real worries.” Read more ...

Source: NY Daily News
H/T: Jihad Watch

Wolf: President has "Moral Obligation" to Inform Americans About Uyghurs

A Virginia Congressman wants President Obama to declassify and release publicly all information about a group of Chinese Uyghurs who have been held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center for more than seven years, but who may be released soon and allowed into the U.S.

In a letter dated Friday, U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) wrote of "grave concerns" he had about the possible release of the Uyghurs, who were detained after being captured in an Afghan training camp. Last fall, an appeals court blocked a lower court order that would have prompted the men's release and admission to into America.

While the administration has made no formal decision, news reports indicate some of the 17 Uyghurs who have been in Guantanamo could be sent to America, perhaps to Virginia suburbs that have a Uyghur community. Before that happens, Wolf wrote, the public deserves a full accounting of the men's background:

"Information I have received indicates that the Uyghurs may be more dangerous than the public has been led to believe. I write today asking that you declassify all intelligence regarding their capture, detention, and your administration's assessment of the threat they may post to Americans, prior to any decision to release them. The American people deserve to have all the facts about these individuals before they should be expected to tolerate their presence in our communities."

Wolf also wants the Administration to explain how it will monitor the Uyghurs once they were released, something he called a "moral obligation" for the Administration:

"The American people cannot afford to simply take your word that these detainees, who were captured training in terrorist camps, are not a threat if released into our communities."

See Wolf's letter to the President here.

Source: IPT News