Five detainees moved from Guantanamo

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon announced Thursday that it had transferred four Yemenis and a Tunisian to third countries for resettlement after the men were held at the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for more than a decade.

U.S. officials said that three Yemenis were sent to the Republic of Georgia and that the other two men were moved to Slovakia, reducing the number of detainees at the prison to 143. This is the first time any Yemeni has been transferred from the prison since 2010.

So far this year, 12 detainees have been transferred out of Guantanamo. That number includes five members of the Taliban who were freed in exchange for a U.S. soldier who had been held captive by the Haqqani terrorist network.

The two men sent to Slovakia are Hashim bin Ali bin Amor Sliti, a Tunisian, and Husayn Salim Muhammad al-Mutari Yafai. The other three Yemenis are Salah Mohammed Salih al-Dhabi, Abdel Ghaib Ahmad Hakim, and Abdul Khaled al-Baydani.

All five had been cleared for release by an interagency task force set up by the Obama administration.

"We are very grateful to our partners for these generous humanitarian gestures," said U.S. special envoy Cliff Sloan, who has responsibility for reducing the prison population so that the facility at Guantanamo can be closed. "We appreciate the strong support we are receiving from our friends and allies around the globe."

Yemenis make up more than half the prison population at Guantanamo Bay, with most cleared for transfer. The Obama administration had suspended the transfer of Yemenis because of the security situation in their country, but sending them home or settling them elsewhere is key to closing the detention center.

The four Yemenis had different backgrounds, but all were suspected of having links to al-Qaeda, according to military assessments. They were apprehended separately in Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan, and had been in custody since 2002.