U.S. Sends 11 Guantánamo Prisoners to Oman to Start New Lives

The U.S. military sent 11 Yemeni prisoners at Guantánamo Bay to Oman to restart their lives, the Pentagon said on Monday, leaving just 15 men in the prison in a bold push at end of the Biden administration that has left the prison population smaller than at any time in its more than 20-year history.

None of the released men had been charged with crimes during their two decades of detention. Now, all but six of the remaining prisoners have been charged with or convicted of war crimes.

There were 40 detainees when President Biden took office and resurrected an Obama administration effort to close the prison.

The Pentagon carried out the secret operation in the early hours of Monday, days before Guantánamo’s most notorious prisoner, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, was scheduled to plead guilty to plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in exchange for a life sentence rather than face a death-penalty trial.

The handoff had been in the works for about three years. An initial plan to conduct the transfer in October 2023 was derailed by opposition from Congress.

The 11 who were released included Moath al-Alwi, a former long-term hunger striker who gained attention in the art world for building model boats from objects found at the Guantánamo prison; Abdulsalam al-Hela, whose testimony was sought by defense lawyers in the U.S.S. Cole case; and Hassan Bin Attash, the younger brother of a defendant in the Sept. 11 conspiracy case.

All of the prisoners were cleared for transfer through federal national-security review panels.

U.S. officials declined to say what the United States gave Oman, one of the most stable U.S. allies in the Middle East, and what guarantees it received in exchange. By law, the military cannot send Guantánamo prisoners to Yemen because, as a nation caught up in a brutal civil war, it is considered too unstable to monitor and rehabilitate returnees.

The United States has typically paid host countries stipends for housing, education, rehabilitation and to monitor the activities of the men. The United States has also asked receiving countries to prevent the former Guantánamo detainees from traveling abroad for at least two years.

Few details about the rehabilitation program have emerged from Oman, an insular nation led by a sultan. Saudi Arabia has shown its reintegration center for Guantánamo detainees to reporters and scholars, but Oman has not.

U.S. officials have called Oman’s program “well rounded” and designed to help the Yemenis return to society with jobs, homes and families, many through arranged marriages.

The Obama administration sent 30 detainees to Oman from 2015 to 2017. One man died there, but the rest were sent home — 27 to Yemen and two to Afghanistan, according to a State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the diplomatic negotiations.

Many of the Yemenis married and had children in Oman and were repatriated with their families.

Word of the successes reached the Yemeni prisoners at Guantánamo and made Oman a desired resettlement country, said George M. Clarke, a lawyer for two of the men who were transferred this week.

“It’s not just culturally compatible,” Mr. Clarke said. “It’s because they are given reasonably decent freedom, and they are properly integrated into society in a successful way. And that’s what makes resettlement work.”

The men sent to Oman were captured by allies of the United States or taken into U.S. custody between 2001 and 2003. Mr. Clarke said they were eager to rejoin a world of cellphones and internet access.

“They want to live their lives,” said Mr. Clarke, who represents Tawfiq al-Bihani and Mr. Bin Attash. “They want to get married. They want to have kids. They want to get a job and have normal lives.”

In October 2023, a military cargo plane and security team were already at Guantánamo Bay to transport the 11 detainees to Oman when congressional objections led the Biden administration to abort the mission, which finally took place this week.

At the time, the prisoners who left this week had already undergone exit interviews with representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and guards had taken away the personal belongings that would travel with them.

For the next year, Tina S. Kaidanow, the Biden administration’s envoy for Guantánamo affairs, kept the deal viable through negotiations, travel and meetings both within the United States government and with the receiving country, the State Department official said. Ms. Kaidanow died in October.

Three other prisoners at Guantánamo are eligible for transfer, including a stateless Rohingya, a Libyan and a Somali.

In addition, efforts are underway to find a nation to receive and provide health care for a disabled Iraqi man who has pleaded guilty to commanding irregular forces in wartime Afghanistan. U.S. officials have a plan to send him to a prison in Baghdad, but he is suing the Biden administration to thwart that transfer on the grounds that he would be at risk in his homeland.

Guantánamo’s detention zone today is an emptier, quieter place than it once was.

The remaining 15 detainees are held in two prison buildings with cell space for about 250 prisoners.

The prison opened on Jan. 11, 2002, with the arrival of the first 20 detainees from Afghanistan. At its peak, in 2003, the operation had about 660 prisoners and more than 2,000 troops and civilians commanded by a two-star general. The detainees were mostly held in open-air-style cells on a bluff overlooking the water while the prisons were built.

The operation now has 800 troops and civilian contractors — 53 guards and other staff members for every detainee — and is run by a more junior officer, Col. Steven Kane.

Most of those sent away were repatriated to countries that included Afghanistan, Algeria, Kenya, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia. In addition, Belize accepted a Pakistani man who pleaded guilty to war crimes and became a government cooperator. That man, Majid Khan, has been joined by his wife and daughter there.