The Obama administration transferred six men from Guantanamo Bay to the Arabian peninsula country of Oman Friday, as part of its ongoing effort to close the facility.
The Department of Defense Friday announced the men had arrived in Oman via military jet. The agency released their names but wouldn’t provide details of why they were originally captured.
“The United States is grateful to the government of Oman for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility,” the Pentagon said in a statement.
“The United States coordinated with the government of Oman to ensure these transfers took place consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures,” it said.
The men’s names are: Idris Ahmad ‘Abd Al Qadir Idris, Sharaf Ahmad Muhammad Mas’ud, Jalal Salam Awad Awad, Saa’d Nasser Moqbil Al Azani, Emad Abdallah Hassan and Muhammad Ali Salem Al Zarnuki.
The men had been held for more than a decade. While they’d been approved in 2010 to be transferred out of Guantanamo Bay to Yemen, it had been delayed because of instability. The U.S. was finally able to reach an agreement with Muscat to resettle them in Oman.
While President Obama hasn’t closed down Guantanamo as he originally promised, his administration has been able to dramatically reduce the number of prisoners held there, now down to 116 from a high of 242.
