The Justice Department has announced the release from Gitmo of a terrorist who conspired to bomb Los Angeles International Airport in the 2000 Millennium plot. Hassan Zumiri, who was part of an al-Qaeda-affiliated terror cell in Montreal, has been repatriated to his native Algeria — a country so rife with terrorists that it was recently placed on the list of 14 countries whose travelers warrant enhanced screening at airports. Worse, the Justice Department won’t say whether the terrorist, Hassan Zumiri, and another Gitmo detainee who was also sent to Algeria will be in custody there. They may be free and clear.

Ahmed Ressam, the main culprit in the Millennium Plot who later cooperated in the investigation, told authorities that Zumiri “knew I was going to America to carry out a job.” Zumiri, the Globe and Mail reports, helped Ressam in the bomb plot, “giving him $3,500 and offering a video camera to carry as ‘camouflage.’ Mr. Ressam also said he asked Mr. Zemiri to find him a pistol, silencer and grenades.”

Zemiri later plotted against the U.S. from Afghanistan, where he was captured after 9/11 by the Northern Alliance, near Tora Bora. He’d been held at Gitmo since 2003.

At The Weekly Standard’s blog, Tom Joscelyn has more on Zumiri and on the other Gitmo detainee transferred to Algeria, Adil Hadi al Jazairi Bin Hamlili. As Tom shows, relying on disclosures at Hamili’s detention proceedings at Gitmo,

Hamlili is a particularly nasty takfiri, which means he is a hardcore ideologue who believes that not only Christians and Jews, but also most Muslims, are infidels. In fact, Hamlili allegedly killed Osama bin Laden’s personal representative in Pakistan because Hamlili felt he had violated sharia law. Despite this incident, memos produced at Gitmo note that Hamlili worked for the Taliban, al Qaeda and a variety of other terrorist groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Gitmo disclosures implicate Hamlili in a Qaeda cell plotting IED attacks against Americans in 2002. Drawing on the reports, Tom notes:

[Hamlili] attended a three day training course in Improvised Explosive Devices held in Peshawar, Pakistan, in November 2002. The training was on improvised firing devices. The students learned how to use a digital alarm clock as an improvised firing device and were taught that cordless phones could also be used. The instructor discussed the use of poisons with explosives . . . . At the three-day training course, an impromptu discussion took place on methods to attack United States forces stationed at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan. One of the methods would involve poisoning the food destined for the base, while it was in the port of Karachi, Pakistan. The other method involved placing Improvised Explosive Devices on fuel trucks that supplied the bases. The Improvised Explosive Devices would be placed on the trucks while they were in Peshawar, Pakistan before they crossed in Afghanistan. The participants additionally discussed bomb attacks of United States forces in Konar Province, Afghanistan; Jalalabad, Afghanistan; and Nangarhar, Afghanistan.

Sure, why wouldn’t we clear these two guys for release? And to Algeria!

Just as al-Qaeda has an active hub in Yemen (“al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula”), it has one based in Algeria (“al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb”). In fact, the group traces back to the early 1990s, when Islamists nearly took over Algeria by democratic means. It was formerly known as the “Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat” (and more familiarly by its French initials, “GSPC” — see this entry from the Militant Islam Monitor). As the New York Times reported in July, it has stepped up attacks on Westerners, including Americans.

Good to see that, between Fort Hood and the Christmas Day pantybomber, the Obama administration has really gotten serious about protecting our nation against further attacks by an enemy it won’t name, motivated by an ideology it won’t describe.