What President Obama Doesn?t Know About Guantanamo. Thomas Joscelyn

information about Al Qaeda’s recruitment of Muslim men in Europe.” The detainees who were cooperating also “provided information about Al Qaeda’s chemical and biological weapons efforts, had spoken about the training of suicide bombers, and had described Al Qaeda’s use of charities to raise money for its aims.”

      “We have been able as a result of information gained here to take operational actions, even military campaigns,” Steve Rodriguez, who was then the head of intelligence at Gitmo, told the Times. “There are instances of learning about active cells, and we have taken action to see that the cell was broken.”

      Such cells were broken in January 2005, when intelligence gleaned from a detainee led to what The Boston Globe called a “spectacular series of counterterrorism raids in Germany.” Hundreds of policemen, according to the Globe, “swept through mosques, homes, and businesses in six cities and arrested 22 suspected militant extremists.” The suspects were apparently not planning an imminent attack, but instead had set up a large operation for recruiting jihadists. According to German police, the conspirators “worked collaboratively, highly professionally, and conspiratorially, misusing mosques and other Islamic establishments as cover” to promote “political violence.”