The re-emergence of two former Guantanamo Bay prisoners as al-Qaeda terrorists in the past week won’t likely change US policy on transfers to Saudi Arabia, the Pentagon said on Monday. More than 100 Saudis have been repatriated from the US military’s prison at Guantanamo Bay, to Saudi Arabia, where the government puts them through a rehabilitation program designed to encourage them to abandon Islamic extremism and reintegrate into civilian life.

The online boasts by two of these men that they have joined al-Qaeda in Yemen underscore that the Saudi system isn’t fail safe, the Pentagon said. A US counterterrorism official in Washington confirmed the men had been Guantanamo detainees.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose that fact on the record. Another two or three Saudis who had been transferred from Guantanamo cannot be located by the Saudi government, said Christopher Boucek, a researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Navy Cmdr Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, said “The best you can do is work with partner nations to ensure that they take the steps to mitigate the threat ex-detainees pose. There’s a risk in all detainee transfers and releases from Guantanamo.”

The two men who went through the Saudi rehabilitation program and resurfaced in Yemen were seen in video clips posted on the Internet last week.