U.S. District Court Rules Taliban Prisoners at Guantanamo May Still Be Detained Under the AUMF (August 3, 2015) [1]
On August 3, 2015, U.S. DC District Court Judge Royce Lamberth held [3] in Al Warafi v. Obama that Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo may still be detained under the authority of the domestic 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) because fighting continues in Afghanistan. In his renewed habeas petition [4], al Warafi argued that “the Government cannot detain a person captured during a conflict once the conflict has ended” and because President Obama has stated that the U.S. and Afghanistan are no longer in an armed conflict with one another, the government no longer has the authority to detain him. Judge Lamberth stated that AUMF detention authority stems from continued fighting in Afghanistan, which the Court concluded remains ongoing against al Qaeda and the Tabliban, and that Obama’s statements alone do not determine whether the government has such detention authority.