Don’t tell Bill Prout, but Mullah Abdul Qayyum, freed from Guantanamo Bay more than two years ago after pleading he only wanted to see his family again, has become a senior Taliban commander in Afghanistan.

Thanks to the recent job openings in his organization, Mullah Qayyum is seen as a candidate to become the next second in command to Supreme Taliban Commander Mullah Omar.

This information seriously compromises the idea of closing Guantanamo Bay and sending the prisoners back to their own countries. Mullah Qayyum isn’t the first innocent farmer to become a senior commander in a terrorist organization upon his release. U.S. officials believe that two Saudis who were released from Guantanamo, one in 2006 and the other in 2007, have become heavily involved in al-Qaeda.

The SITE Intelligence Group, a US-based terrorist tracking organization, released a video last year showing speeches from al-Qaeda leaders in the Arabian Peninsula. One of those leaders was Guantanamo Prisoner Number 372, released back to Saudi Arabia in 2007, and now deputy commander of a regional group of al-Qaeda. The former detainee, Abu Sufyan al-Azdi al-Shahri, went through the “Saudi rehabilitation program”, but has resurfaced in Yemen with al-Qaeda.

Mullah Qayyum was given charge of the military campaign in southern Afghanistan about 14 months ago, which means he has been leading insurgent attacks against Canadian and coalition soldiers as they clear out Marjah during Operation Mushtaruk. He was reported captured in Quetta, Pakistan, last month, but those rumours have turned out to be false.

Meanwhile, last night the CBC’s Terry Milewski reported that Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran has found the smoking gun of Ottawa’s complicity in torture on Afghan detainees. Mr.Attaran claims, without any substantiating evidence whatsoever, that in the redacted government documents ordered released to Parliament is the proof that some detainees were ordered tortured by the Canadian government.

The entire report is based on the supposition of Mr.Attaran that evidence could be found which might possibly link the government to acts of complicity in torture. The report even includes an ominous looking photograph of JTF-2 special forces capturing Taliban detainees. Unfortunately for the accuracy of the CBC, that picture is from 2002, whereas the allegations pertaining to the government surround the time between late 2005 and early 2007. Which means that other than Mr.Colvin’s remarks that apprehending “high-value targets” would require special forces, there is no evidence to suggest their involvement whatsoever.

Of course, while the above story about a released Guantanamo Bay inmate running battles that kill Canadian troops will get quickly buried, you can be sure that come Monday the story will be “JTF-2 renditioned Afghans under orders from Canada to have them tortured in Afghan prisons.”

h/t BR