Mullah Fazel Mazloom, sent to Qatar in 2014
Mullah Mazloom, sometimes identified as Mullah Mohammad Fazl, was among the five Taliban members sent to Qatar in exchange for the sergeant’s release. Bowe Bergdahl, who was held prisoner by the Haqqani militant network in the tribal area of Pakistan’s northwest border. Mullah Mazloom, a former head of the Taliban Army, is accused of having participated in the Hazara Shiite massacres in Afghanistan before the 2001 US invasion, crimes that cannot be prosecuted by a military commission. In Qatar, he emerged as a member of the Taliban negotiating team that worked out an agreement to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan and determine a power-sharing agreement between the Afghan government and the Taliban. He traveled to Pakistan as part of the negotiating team in the summer of 2020, with the prior approval of the governments of the U.S., Qatar and Pakistan.
Abdul Haq Wasiq, sent to Qatar in 2014
Wasiq, deputy minister of intelligence before his capture in 2001, was also included in Bergdahl’s trade and joined the Taliban’s political office in Doha, Qatar. His brother-in-law, Ghulam Ruhani, was repatriated in 2007. The two men were captured after attending a negotiating meeting with US officials. Once transferred to Doha, where he remains, Wasiq also participated in negotiations with the United States, which resulted in the release of more Taliban prisoners held by the Afghan government under an agreement with the Trump administration that aimed to stop the Taliban attacks against US forces.
Mullah Norullah Noori, sent to Qatar in 2014
Mullah Noori, who was governor of a province in Afghanistan, also joined the Taliban’s political office in Doha, Qatar. He and the other four Taliban prisoners who were negotiated for the release of Sergeant Bergdahl live as guests of the Qatari government, like many expats in Doha. The family joined them, sent their children to a Pakistani school set up for foreign families and live off government stipends in a condominium. Their ability to travel is regulated by the Qatari government.
Abdul Rahman Shalabi, sent to Saudi Arabia in 2015
Shalabi became one of the most well-known Saudi prisoners in Guantánamo because of his long hunger strikes, which at times required him to be force-fed. After returning to Saudi Arabia in September 2015, he was immediately sent to prison with a three-year sentence that was shortened to “good behavior” and he was released in 2018 after a year or more in a rehabilitation program. He married and became a father, fulfilling a wish that his lawyer presented to the Guantanamo parole board in April 2015 “to settle down, get married and have a family of his own, and leave the past behind”.
Ali Ahmad al Rahizi, sent to the United Arab Emirates in 2015
Rahizi, a Yemeni citizen who the United States has concluded could not be safely repatriated, is confined to a cell in the United Arab Emirates, according to activists who spoke with families of Yemenis who were sent there for resettlement by the Obama administration. American officials said the Emirates had agreed to establish a firing program for detainees who were unable to return home – moving from prison to a rehabilitation program for jobs in the area, which relies heavily on foreign labor. It never materialized. The London-based Life After Guantánamo project describes detention in the Emirates as bleak and threatening, in part because the country has considered involuntarily repatriating ex-prisoners to Yemen, where they would be in danger.
Abd al Malik, sent to Montenegro in 2016
Mr. Malik, a Yemeni who went by the name of Abdul Malik al Rahabi, is living in Montenegro, where the United States sent him for resettlement, and trying to sell works of art he painted while at Guantánamo. He was accompanied by his wife and daughter, who considered life there socially incompatible, so the family moved to Khartoum, Sudan. But life was also difficult there and they returned to Montenegro. Art sales stopped some time ago and Malik’s idea of working as a driver and tourist guide soured when the coronavirus pandemic started.
Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel, sent to Oman in 2016
As a Yemeni, Moqbel cannot be repatriated because of the civil war, which prevented the Obama administration from negotiating security deals. Instead, neighboring Oman agreed to take him, along with 29 other detainees, to one of the most successful resettlement programs. He found work in a factory, married and is now the father of two children, according to ex-Guantanamo prisoner Mansour Adayfi, who recounts life after the arrest of some ex-convicts. As a rule, ex-detainees in Oman refuse to speak to foreign reporters, apparently at the insistence of the host country.