According to an exclusive obtained by CNN, one of the five Taliban commanders President Obama swapped for alleged Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl last year has attempted to reengage in "militant activity":
#Breaking: Exclusive: Pentagon suspects Bergdahl swap detainee returned to fight http://t.co/Z9gBveXMDg
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) January 29, 2015The details:
The U.S. military and intelligence community now suspect that one of the five Taliban detainees released from Guantanamo Bay in return for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in May of last year has attempted to return to militant activity from his current location in Qatar, CNN has learned exclusively.
The development has led to an ongoing debate inside the administration about whether there is a new threat from this man, and potentially the other four.
The officials would not say which of the five men is suspected. But an ongoing U.S. intelligence program to secretly intercept and monitor all of their communications in Qatar turned up evidence in recent months that one of them has "reached out" to try to encourage militant activity, one official said. The official would offer no further details.
Under current law, this act placed the man in the category of being "suspected" of re-engaging in terrorist or insurgent activities. However, several officials say there is now a debate inside the administration that the intelligence may be stronger than the "suspected" classification. Some elements of the intelligence community believe the information is strong enough to classify the man as "confirmed" for returning to illegal activities. All five men are having their communications even more closely monitored right now, but the belief is there is no current threat, one official told CNN.
As a reminder, the Taliban 5 were supposedly going to be monitored and kept from returning to the battle field, either traditionally or through radicalizing future fighters over the internet.
Over to you, Hillary Clinton.
"As long as they're in Qatar, they’re not a threat to the United States...in Qatar with an agreement that has been entered into, they are supposed to be constrained from what they can do, and certainly they are not supposed to be permitted to travel, that is as my understanding, tells me what the deal is and in that situation, they are not a threat.”
Meanwhile, the White House is still trying to clarify how exactly the Taliban isn't a terrorist organization.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member