Republican Senators Urge Trump To Reopen Guantanamo Prison To IS Terrorists - Letter

Sumaira FH Published January 23, 2019 | 02:05 PM

A group of Republican senators have proposed that US President Donald Trump reopen the Guantanamo Bay detention camp to the most hardened Islamic State (IS, a terrorist group outlawed in Russia) militants captured in Syria, a relevant letter obtained by The Washington Free Beacon said

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd January, 2019) A group of Republican senators have proposed that US President Donald Trump reopen the Guantanamo Bay detention camp to the most hardened Islamic State (IS, a terrorist group outlawed in Russia) militants captured in Syria, a relevant letter obtained by The Washington Free Beacon said.

The joint letter signed by Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and John Cornyn was reportedly sent to the White House on Tuesday.

"We urge you to consider transferring the worst of these Islamic State fighters to the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, where they will face justice," senators wrote in the letter.

The senators stressed that "it is imperative" that nearly 700 "battle-hardened terrorists in northeast Syria" captured by US coalition partners with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) not be released.

"If given the opportunity, many of them will take up arms against our Syrian and Iraqi partners or attempt to infiltrate the United States and Europe to carry out terror attacks against civilian targets, like they have already done in France and Belgium," they warned.

The news portal noted that the letter was timed to the 10th anniversary of former President Barack Obama's executive order to close the military prison. Obama, however, failed to fulfill his pledge since the Congress refused to allocate funds for the facility's closure.

In January 2018, Trump announced that he had signed an order to keep Guantanamo open but no new prisoners have been transferred to the facility since that.

The detention center was established by the United States in Cuba the wake of 9/11 to jail terror suspects indefinitely, but became notorious for human rights abuses.