The US has transferred 12 detainees from its Guantanamo Bay prison camp to Afghanistan, Yemen and the Somaliland region, the Justice Department says.
Six Yemenis, four Afghans and two Somali detainees were sent to their homelands over the weekend, it said.
President Barack Obama acknowledged in November that he would miss his January deadline to close down the camp.
The US plans to send 116 detainees to their home countries or to third countries willing to accept them.
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Yemenis account for almost half of the 198 detainees who remain at the US military base in Cuba.
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President Obama has pledged to shut the controversial detention centre in 2010, and announced last week that many of the detainees would be sent to a prison in the US state of Illinois.
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Al Qaeda and other militant Islamist groups in Yemen stepped up threats to Western aviation in the months prior to the attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight by a Nigerian national who claimed ties to al Qaeda operatives there.
In recent months, al Qaeda operatives in Yemen, who historically focused on the Arabian Peninsula, have stepped up exhortations to followers to attack Western targets, particularly airlines.
In an article posted on jihadist Web sites in October, the emir of the Yemeni affiliate called on followers to emulate an attack technique used by a Saudi militant, who attempted to assassinate the deputy interior minister of Saudi Arabia earlier this year.
He appeared to conceal an explosive in or around his underpants. Mr. Abdulmutallab is believed to have used a concealed explosive.