2 Former Guantanamo Detainees Gave Left El Salvador

Two former prisoners from Guantanamo who were transferred to El Salvador 17 months ago have quietly slipped out of this Central American nation.

When and how the two men, both ethnic Uighurs, left El Salvador is unknown, but their departure is sure to fuel worries that the United States has lost track of some Guantanamo detainees who have been released.

U.S. officials declined to say when they became aware that the former prisoners were no longer in El Salvador.

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Muhamman, a 35-year-old former farmer, was the only Uighur at Guantanamo considered a “high” risk detainee, said Thomas Joscelyn, a terrorism researcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank in Washington concerned with counterterrorism.

At his combatant status review tribunal, a type of military court, Muhamman acknowledged that he’d been a weapons trainer at a camp under Abdul Haq, a fellow Uighur who was a top lieutenant to al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, Joscelyn said. Abdul Haq was killed in a drone strike in Pakistan’s North Waziristan in early 2010, he added.

The camp was run by “heavy hitters . . . al Qaida and Taliban trainers,” he said.