Guantánamo downsized its detainee population by three and sent one not to a recognized nation but to an ally African administration.

In this image reviewed by the U.S. Military, a secure recreational yard is shown at Camp V , Saturday, June 25, 2005 at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba . This yard is where detainees of Camp V can exercise and enjoy the sun. HARAZ GHANBARI / AP Document | The Pentagon statement

BY CAROL ROSENBERG

crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba, November 4, 2008 -- The military has trimmed the war on terror detainee population by three men, and sent home the last known captive from Kazakhstan as well as another detainee to Tajikistan and a third to Somaliland, an autonomous republic in Africa which lacks international recognition.

Kazak Abdulrahim Kerimbakiev, 25, has returned to his homeland and ''is safe with his family,'' said New York attorney Robert Weiner, who had helped the long-held captive sue for his freedom in federal courts.

Defense Department documents indicate he arrived at the prison camps here in June 2002.

Legal sources also identified the Somaliland returnee as Abdallah Muhamed Hussein, in his 60s.

He told a military review board in late 2004 or early 2005 here that he was a teacher by profession, had 11 children and left his homeland in 1963. Pakistani security forces took him captive in Peshawar and handed him off to U.S. troops, who sent him to Guantánamo in August 2002 on suspicion of ties to al Qaeda or the Taliban.

The Pentagon stuck to its template statement Monday in revealing last week's repatriations, calling the decision to send long-held captives away from this remote Navy base ''an unprecedented step in the history of warfare'' at a time when ``hostilities are ongoing.''

It noted that the U.S. government has transferred more than 520 former Guantánamo captives to 30 nations -- from Albania to Yemen -- but did not explain that Somaliland has a different status. It's not an independent state but a self-proclaimed autonomous region of northwestern Somalia .

Somaliland declared its independence from Somalia in 1991, and by some accounts has served as a U.S. ally in the Horn of Africa in the fight against Islamic militants in Somalia , to its south. The Bush administration has said it is leaving to the African Union any decision on recognition.

U.S. officials have considered Somaliland as stable, although just last week, around the time the United States sent Hussein home, a succession of suicide bombs wracked its major city, Hargiesa, killing 19.

The Bush administration asks nations taking Guantánamo detainees, either as repatriates or for resettlement, to offer both ''security assurances'' and pledges of ``humane treatment.''

In general that means either continued detention or monitoring of the former detainees or, in the instance of Saudi Arabia , a rehabilitation program to ease their entry back into society.

U.S. spokesmen would not explain the arrangement with Somaliland .

At the State Department, spokesman Joe Mellott of the Office of War Crimes Issues said the United States does not formally recognize Somaliland but engages with representatives there as ``a regional administration.''

He would not speak to the specifics of the Hussein case but said the United States views has ties with the leadership there ``as a practical matter. We acknowledge them as a regional administration on the ground. And we engage with them on a regular basis.''

Despite the latest transfer mission, a Pentagon statement said the prison camps population remained at about 255 detainees, 60 of whom the U.S. wants to transfer or release by agreement with host nations.

The 60 include 17 Uighurs, Muslim citizens of China, whom a federal judge ordered brought to the United States for release last month -- until an appeals court froze his order.

Source: Miami Herald