GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba — The United States government on Thursday offered a $4 million reward for information on the whereabouts of a Sudanese man who was convicted of war crimes at Guantánamo, was repatriated in 2012 and is suspected of recruiting for Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen.
It is believed to be the first case of the United States offering a reward for the whereabouts of a prisoner released from Guantánamo by the Obama administration.
In 2014, the United States similarly offered a reward for a Saudi man who had been held at Guantánamo but never charged and was released by the Bush administration in 2006. He was killed in a drone strike in 2015. The State Department declined on Thursday to say whether any money was paid.
The announcement by the State Department of the new bounty on Thursday offered up to $4 million for information on the location of the Sudanese man, Ibrahim al-Qosi, 59. He pleaded guilty at Guantánamo in 2010 to providing support for terrorism and Al Qaeda in exchange for his repatriation. The reward announcement described Mr. al-Qosi as a member of the leadership team of the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Three years after his repatriation, Mr. al-Qosi began appearing in videos and other publications of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and, according to the State Department, “has encouraged lone-wolf attacks against the United States in online propaganda.” A report to Congress by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which was released in June, said that this year the United States intelligence community had identified 67 living and at-large former Guantánamo prisoners who after being sent elsewhere engaged in terrorist or insurgent activities. Seven of them were released by the Obama administration.
The report said the intelligence community had identified another 78 at-large former Guantánamo prisoners who were suspected of engaging in terrorist or insurgent activities.
U.S. Offers $4 Million for Location of Freed Guantanamo Convict | Pulitzer Center
