Among those captured was Daniel Joseph Maldonado, an American who is now serving a 10-year sentence in federal prison in Houston for undergoing military training at a camp in Somalia. Canadians, Swedes, Eritreans and Syrians also were detained.
While the operation netted a handful of hard-core Islamist militants who were training at jihadist camps in Somalia—an American among them—the vast majority of the detainees have been released without charges.
Tom,

Truth in lending, the only information I have on these allegations is the article you posted, so we're all making assumptions and forming opinions with little to no facts; however, you still bring up some good points:

Risk versus gain? The two paras I "selectively" cut and paste above indicate that the actual risk may have been very high to our national interests and even the Europeans. The author admits, yet simply glances over it, that some were hard core Islamist militants. Only speculaton, but if they were planning another major attack on western embassies somewhere in Africa, or to possibly hijack a plane, or execute a Mumbai type attack, then the renditions in theory could have prevented hundreds of innocent deaths.

You wrote,
But in any case, my point is simply that if the US and AFRICOM are to invest so heavily in buidling rapport on the continent, then it has to be a fuly coordinated effort. That much of this happened before AFRICOM's watch matters not a whit; JTFHOA was in full swing as were ops in Somalia. In any case, to the Africans we--AFRICOM, JTFHOA, FBI, CIA or Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band--all look the same or are at least looked at from a common suspicious perspective.
I agree 100%, and I hope that risk factor was taken into the analysis process, and I further hope that if the decision to execute was in some way influenced by us, there was a "deliberate" decision making process that weighed the costs versus benefits and that the right decision based on the information available at the time was made.

I'm not a big fan of the current administration, but I do agree strongly with the President's statement that this is a different type of war. If this unorthodox operation saved American and other innocent lives then that should also be considered in the calculus.

Final argument, "if" the American people found out we had intelligence of an impending attack and we didn't act to prevent it by all means necessary, what would their judgment be? Would they accept that we thought it was more important to enable AFRICOM strategic communication and gain access to Africa?

I only throw these what-if thoughts out for consideration. I would like to hear jmm99's thoughts from the legal perspective.