Muhammaed Yasir Ahmed Taher was a citizen of Yemen, who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States's Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 679. American intelligence analysts estimate he was born in 1980, in Ibb, Yemen.
He was the younger brother of Ali Abdullah Ahmed, one of the three Guantanamo detainees who died in custody on June 10, 2006.
He was repatriated on December 19, 2009.
NBC News reported, on March 3, 2017, that he was killed by a missile launched from a surveillance drone on March 2, 2017.
Background
Taher was apprehended by a mixed force of Pakistani and American counter-terrorism officials in March 2002. He was captured in an off-campus residence provided for students of Salafi University in Faisalabad, Pakistan together with a dozen other foreign students. He claimed he was just a student at Salafi University, and had no ties to terrorism.
He faced the allegations that his photo was identified as someone who had been seen by an al Qaida member in Afghanistan, and that he had received a recruitment letter from the Taliban.
Historian Andy Worthington, author of The Guantanamo Files, identified Tahar as an individual who informed the officers on his Combatant Status Review Tribunal that he had been informed, early in his detention, that he had been apprehended in error, and would soon be released.
Official status reviews
Originally the Bush Presidency asserted that captives apprehended in the "war on terror" were not covered by the Geneva Conventions, and could be held indefinitely, without charge, and without an open and transparent review of the justifications for their detention. In 2004 the United States Supreme Court ruled, in Rasul v. Bush, that Guantanamo captives were entitled to being informed of the allegations justifying their detention, and were entitled to try to refute them.
Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants
Following the Supreme Court's ruling the Department of Defense set up the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants.
Scholars at the Brookings Institution, led by Benjamin Wittes, listed the captives still held in Guantanamo in December 2008, according to whether their detention was justified by certain common allegations:
Mohmmad Ahmad Ali Tahar was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges ... are associated with both Al Qaeda and the Taliban." Mohmmad Ahmad Ali Tahar was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges that the following detainees stayed in Al Qaeda, Taliban or other guest- or safehouses." Mohmmad Ahmad Ali Tahar was listed as one of the captives who "The military alleges that the following detainees were captured under circumstances that strongly suggest belligerency." Mohmmad Ahmad Ali Tahar was listed as one of the captives who was an "al Qaeda operative". Mohmmad Ahmad Ali Tahar was listed as one of the "34 [captives] admit to some lesser measure of affiliation—like staying in Taliban or Al Qaeda guesthouses or spending time at one of their training camps." Mohmmad Ahmad Ali Tahar was listed as one of the captives who had "stayed at Taliban or Al Qaeda guesthouses." Mohmmad Ahmad Ali Tahar was listed as one of the captives who had admitted "some form of associational conduct."
Tahar chose to participate in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal. In response to a court order the Department of Defense was forced to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request and publish a sixteen page summarized transcript from Tahar's Tribunal.
Tahar chose to participate in his Administrative Review Board hearing. In response to a court order the Department of Defense responded to a Freedom of Information Act request and published a twelve page summarized transcript from his first annual Review Board in the spring of 2006.
On January 9, 2009, the Department of Defense released two heavily redacted memos, from his 2007 Administrative Review Board, to Gordon England, the Designated Civilian Official.
Habeas petition
A petition of habeas corpus was filed on his behalf. Over two hundred captives had habeas corpus petitions filed on their behalf before the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 and the Military Commissions Act of 2006 closed off the captives' access to the US civilian justice system. On June 12, 2008, in its ruling on the Boumediene v. Bush habeas corpus petition, the United States Supreme Court over-rode the Congress and Presidency, and restored the captives' access to habeas corpus.