Sabar Lal Melma (1962 – 3 September 2011) was a citizen of Afghanistan who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.

Critics argued that the USA could not evade its obligation to conduct a competent tribunal to determine whether captives are, or are not, entitled to the protections of prisoner of war (POW) status.

[16] The McClatchy report quoted an Afghan official named Mohammed Roze, who acknowledged Lal had served as the commander of a border patrol, but that he nevertheless belonged in Guantanamo, because he had bombarded settlements full of civilians during regional disputes.

NATO officials reported that an individual named Sabar Lal Melma was shot dead during a night raid on his home in Jalalabad on September 3, 2011.

[24] Ray Riviera, writing in the New York Times on September 4, 2011, reported that Sabar's killing came just two days after coalition forces had promised the Afghanistan High Peace Council that they would quit harassing him.

Riviera of the New York Times quoted Haji Deen Muhammad of the Peace Council about how the killing of Sabar would affect efforts to get members of the Taliban to defect.

In September 2011, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) issued a press release stating they had knowledge that Lal Melma was "in contact with several senior al Qaeda members throughout Kunar and Pakistan" [17]