Propaganda You Can Take to the Bank

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year.

The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with Al Qaeda in Yemen.

His status was announced in an Internet statement by the militant group and was confirmed by an American counterterrorism official.

“They’re one and the same guy,” said the official, who insisted on anonymity because he was discussing an intelligence analysis. “He returned to Saudi Arabia in 2007, but his movements to Yemen remain unclear.”

Yeah-- because if there's anyone you can trust, it's an anonymous intelligence official putting out a line on al-CIA-duh!

Meanwhile, prepare for a right-wing freakout:

The documents state that Mr. Shihri met with a group of “extremists” in Iran and helped them get into Afghanistan. They also say he was accused of trying to arrange the assassination of a writer, in accordance with a fatwa, or religious order, issued by an extremist cleric.

But if we assume that this guy is a real extremist, it's most likely that his imprisonment in "GITMO" made him more of an extremist than he otherwise would have been-- he may well have even gotten special "training" to be a terrorist there.

UPDATE: More evidence that released GITMO prisoners becoming terrorists is propaganda.