Taliban hand list of prisoners to US

Ag AFP

DOHA/KABUL: The Afghan Taliban have handed over a list of 5,000 prisoners to the United States, a spokesperson for the group’s Qatar Office, Suhail Shaheen, said on Tuesday.

“There can be no dispute or doubt over the prisoners’ identity now that we have handed over the list of prisoners to the US,” Shaheen said. “One of our conditions is that the prisoners be handed over in a less populated area or a Taliban delegation identifies the prisoners in the jail,” the spokesperson added.

Shaheen tweeted any prisoners “handed over to us ... will be accepted (only) after verification by our delegation”. “They should be the people whose names are in the list,” Shaheen wrote.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani was set to make an announcement on releasing the Taliban prisoners, as well as the setting up of a discussion team later on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, American forces have started pulling out of two bases in Afghanistan, a US official said on Tuesday, the day peace talks between Kabul and the Taliban were due to start despite widespread violence and a political crisis.

The United States is keen to end its longest-ever conflict, and under the terms of a deal signed in Doha last month has said all foreign forces will quit Afghanistan within 14 months — provided the Taliban stick to their security commitments.

Under the accord, the US is initially supposed to cut its troop presence from about 12,000 currently to 8,600 by mid-July, and close five of its roughly 20 bases across the country.

Troops have started leaving one base in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province in the south, and another base in Herat in the west, a US official told AFP on the condition of anonymity.

Even with the drawdown, US forces retain “all the military means and authorities to accomplish our objectives”, Colonel Sonny Leggett, spokesman for US Forces-Afghanistan, said Monday, referring to American counterterrorism operations and support for Afghan forces.

Omar Zwak, spokesman for Helmand’s governor, told AFP that “20 to 30” foreigners had left Lashkar Gah since the weekend. Under the terms of the withdrawal deal, the Taliban are supposed to tackle militants such as the Islamic State group and al-Qaeda, as well as hold talks with the Afghan government that were due to start Tuesday.

But Kabul is in disarray and appears unable to present a unified front to negotiate with the Taliban. On Monday, President Ashraf Ghani was inaugurated for a second term following an election that was marred by fraud allegations while his rival, former chief executive Abdullah Abdullah, also declared himself winner and swore himself in as premier in a parallel ceremony.

Peace talks were supposed to start Tuesday but have been thrown into limbo by a dispute over the release of Taliban prisoners — something the insurgents have demanded as a prerequisite ahead of negotiations, but which Ghani has so far refused to do. Ghani was expected later on Tuesday to announce a decree on the issue and reveal details of the negotiating team.

A member of the Taliban’s leadership council told AFP the insurgents had delivered a list of the 5,000 captives they wanted freed to the Afghan government. But he accused Kabul of acting in bad faith, alleging that “the government (planned) to release only those prisoners who are elderly, very ill, or those whose sentences have expired”.