President Obama's plan to close Guantánamo Bay within a year appeared to be unravelling yesterday with the emergence of former inmates on terrorist websites, fierce opposition in the US and a lukewarm response to taking detainees from the European Union.

After signing an executive order last week to close the US military prison, Mr Obama has been confronted with myriad obstacles that are making his ambitious pledge look unrealistic.

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, ruled out the prospect of Britain taking any more inmates, claiming that it had already made a significant contribution.

His announcement, at a meeting of EU foreign ministers, came as Saudi Arabia announced yesterday that it had rearrested nine Islamist militants, including former Guantánamo inmates released to the Kingdom who had undergone a re-education programme in Riyadh.

Two other former detainees sent home to Saudi Arabia from the prison in November 2007 re-emerged over the weekend on a jihadist website, railing against Britain, the US and Israel and identifying themselves by their Guantánamo detainee numbers. One of the men who appeared on video was Said Ali al-Shihri, now the deputy leader of al-Qaeda's Yemeni branch. He is suspected of involvement in a bombing at the US Embassy in the Yemeni capital Sanaa in September, which killed 16. “By Allah, imprisonment only increased our persistence in our principles for which we went out, did jihad for, and were imprisoned for,” al-Shihri said on the video. The other former inmate has been identified as Abu Hareth Muhammad al-Awfi, who is seen clutching an automatic rifle and a grenade.

Robert Gibbs, Mr Obama's spokesman, said that there were “admonitions” to be taken from the case of al-Shihri, but that the President had confidence in the process he had put in place to evaluate the prisoners.

The Pentagon is set to release a report this week giving details to back up its claim that 61 former Guantánamo detainees - about 11 per cent of the 520 inmates who have been released - had “returned to terrorism”.

At a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels yesterday, the idea of taking in about 60 Guantánamo inmates cleared for release received a far from enthusiastic response, with some members, including Britain, appearing to reject the prospect.

Mr Miliband said that the Government was focused on dealing with its own nationals in US custody. He said that Britain had already taken nine British nationals and three foreigners who have British residency rights. Whitehall indicated last month that it was considering receiving Guantánamo detainees on a case-by-case basis but Mr Miliband made clear that a decision had now been made to limit further help to two inmates with residency rights still in the jail. “We feel that is already a significant contribution,” Mr Miliband said. “We have played an important role in showing how this can be done. We're happy to offer our experience to other European countries, as they think about what steps they want to make, to help in the closure of Guantánamo Bay.”

He added: “No one is under the illusion that this will be a quick process.”

Javier Solana, the EU's foreign and security policy chief, said that Europe wanted to help Mr Obama to close the prison but that no EU state could act until the new Administration could demonstrate that prisoners did not pose a threat. It emerged over the weekend that the US case files on the 250 detainees still in Guantánamo were in disarray, scattered throughout various government departments across Washington with some agencies, including the CIA, reluctant to share information.

Austria, the Netherlands and Sweden made it clear that they will not take any inmates. France has proposed the idea of a central EU clearing house for detainees who want to move to Europe. Karel Schwarzenberg, the Czech Foreign Minister representing the Czech presidency of the EU, said: “There is nobody very hot about this. The ministers discussed whether there may be ways to assist the US and they decided to try and get a common political decision. It is not a question that can be solved in weeks or months.”

There is broad bipartisan opposition in the US to the idea of housing detainees on American soil.

John McCain, who supports closing Guantánamo, criticised Mr Obama for declaring that he would shut it without first working out how to go about it. “I don't know a state in America that wants them,” the Arizona senator said.

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