ELEVEN Yemenis held without charge for more than two decades at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been transferred to Oman, the US Department of Defence has announced.

The Pentagon named the 11 men as Uthman Abd al-Rahim Muhammad Uthman, Moath Hamza Ahmed al-Alwi, Khalid Ahmed Qassim, Suhayl Abdul Anam al-Sharabi, Hani Saleh Rashid Abdullah, Tawfiq Nasir Awad al-Bihani, Omar Mohammed Ali al-Rammah, Sanad Ali Yislam al-Kazimi, Hassan Muhammad Ali Bib Attash, Sharqawi Abdu Ali al-Hajj and Abd al-Salam al-Hilah.

Announced on Monday, the transfer leaves the number of Guantanamo detainees at 15. 

This comprises six never-charged men, two convicted and sentenced inmates and seven others charged with the 2001 attacks, the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and 2002 bombings in Bali, Indonesia.

Fifteen is the fewest detainees since 2002, when President George W Bush’s administration turned Guantanamo into a detention site for the mostly Muslim men taken into custody around the world in Washington’s “war on terror.”

The US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and military and covert operations elsewhere followed the September 11 2001 al-Qaida attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

Human rights groups and some US legislators have pushed successive administrations to close Guantanamo or, failing that, release all those detainees never charged with a crime. 

At its peak, Guantanamo, located on 45 square miles of US-occupied territory in south-east Cuba, held about 800 detainees.

The Biden administration and those before it said they were working to find suitable countries willing to take those never-charged detainees. 

In a statement the US military said: “The US appreciates the willingness of the government of Oman and other partners to support ongoing US efforts focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing the Guantanamo Bay facility.”