Tipsheet

Good News: One of Obama's GITMO Five Releases Helped With Lead-Up to 9/11

Again, what could possibly go wrong with the recent release of five high-level Taliban commanders in exchange for Sgt. Private Bowe Bergdahl? Just about everything.

Writing in the Weekly Standard, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies Senior Fellow Thomas Joscelyn writes that the "Taliban 5" are worse "than we've heard." In fact one of them, Mohammad Fazl, played a key roll in the lead-up to the 2001 9/11 terror attacks.

One of the five senior Taliban leaders transferred to Qatar in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl played a key role in al Qaeda’s plans leading up to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Mohammad Fazl, who served as the Taliban’s army chief of staff and deputy defense minister prior to his detention at Guantánamo, did not have a hand in planning the actual 9/11 hijackings. Along with a notorious al Qaeda leader, however, Fazl did help coordinate a military offensive against the enemies of the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan the day before. And Osama bin Laden viewed that September 10 offensive as an essential part of al Qaeda’s 9/11 plot.

A far cry from "bologna."