The Pentagon on Monday announced the transfer of two Libyan inmates from the Guantanamo Bay detention center to Senegal, the latest move under President Barack Obama's contentious plan to shutter the notorious jail.

The two men -- Salem Abdu Salam Ghereby, 55, and Omar Khalif Mohammed Abu Baker Mahjour Umar, born in 1972 -- had been in the U.S. military prison since 2002.

A new commander took charge Wednesday at Guantanamo, the U.S. prison for terror suspects that President Barack Obama has tried in vain to close.

The new boss is Navy Rear Adm. Peter Clarke, who used to command a nuclear submarine and has also worked to fight drug trafficking in South America.

The United States announced Thursday it has repatriated a Moroccan prisoner who spent 13 years at Guantanamo Bay, as part of a long-running effort to close the U.S. military prison in Cuba.

The Pentagon said Younis Abdurrahman Chekkouri was sent home to Morocco following a "comprehensive" security review that saw six U.S. departments and agencies unanimously approve him for transfer.

Uruguay, the only South American country to take in detainees from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo, said Monday it will not accept any more.

"No more Guantanamo prisoners are going to come. That's final," Foreign Minister Rodolfo Nin Novoa told journalists.

Six former Guantanamo inmates being resettled in Uruguay have left hospital and been taken to a house where they will adjust to their new lives in South America, the labor union hosting them said Thursday.

Five of the six former Guantanamo inmates being resettled in Uruguay will likely move into a house in the capital Montevideo on Wednesday, according to the labor union providing the lodging.

The men have undergone medical checks in a military hospital since they arrived Sunday as part of a deal aimed at helping U.S. President Barack Obama fulfill his long-delayed promise to close the prison set up in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

After more than a decade held without charge, dozens of Guantanamo detainees ought to have sight of freedom, but hard-won deals for their release are languishing awaiting a final Pentagon signature.

One of the five senior Taliban figures released from Guantanamo Bay in exchange for a U.S. soldier wants to rejoin the Afghan militant group but to work for peace, his relative told Agence France Presse Tuesday.

Norullah Noori is accused of taking part in the 1998 massacre of thousands of Shiites when he was governor of the northern province of Balkh.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a mammoth annual defense bill Thursday, thumbing its nose at President Barack Obama by including obstacles preventing him from taking steps to close Guantanamo.

The National Defense Authorization Act which lays out military-related budget requests for 2015 passed easily, but Obama has threatened to veto the massive bill if it includes provisions that bar the administration from transferring to U.S. soil any of the detainees still held at the U.S. Naval facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Uruguay's President Jose Mujica said Thursday that his country had agreed to receive detainees from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, calling the decision a matter of human rights.

U.S. President Barack Obama is struggling to fulfill his five-year-old promise to close the controversial jail, and countries have been slow to come forward and agree to accept transferred inmates.