Teenagers freed

last updated 8 January 2015

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

The U.S. has released the three youngest prisoners at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and sent them home to their families in Afghanistan. The detention of the boys, ages 13 to 15, had drawn sharp criticism from human-rights groups. The boys were sent to Guantanamo in February 2003, after being captured in Afghanistan, and were interrogated along with hundreds of other suspected al Qaida and Taliban fighters. One of the youths said the Taliban had kidnapped him and made him fight. The Pentagon said it released the boys after determining that they had “no further intelligence value” and “no longer posed a threat to our nation.”