Pajhwok obtains list of 5,000 Taliban prisoners

KABUL (Pajhwok): Pajhwok Afghan News has obtained the list of 5,000 Taliban prisoners who the group wants to be released before intra-Afghan talkLast month, the Americans and the Taliban signed a landmark peace agreement, under which all foreign troop will withdraw in 14 months from Afghanistan. Under the deal, Taliban prisoners in government jails have to be released before intra Afghan negotiations begin

But President Ashraf Ghani says his government has held out no promise to set free thousands of Taliban prisoners.

Later, Ghani said 1,500 Taliban prisoners would be freed before talks and the rest after a reduction in violence. But the Taliban insist that intra-Afghan dialogue would happen after the release of 5,000 prisoners

However, a credible source told Pajhwok on Saturday that the list of Taliban’s 5,000 prisoners had been shared with the National Security Council of Afghanistan by the US Special Envoy Zalmai Khalilzad.

The list, a copy of which is obtained by Pajhwok, includes name, father’s name, grandfather’s name, province, district, prison, block and the time of detention of the Taliban prisoners.

Most of the prisoners in the list have been detained after 2013 and only a few of them detained before that year. Some of the prisoners are detained in recent past.

For example, Hazrat Mohammad, son of Mirza Mohammad, grandson of Malang, a resident of Nawa district of Helmand province, No. 1338, was arrested on January 1, 2002 and is imprisoned in third block of Pul-i-Charkhi Jail.

Mohammad Nabi, son of GhulamDastagir, grandson of Shamsuddin, is a resident of Rashidan district of Ghazni province, numbered 265, arrested on November, 14, 2003 and is in Bagram jail.

Abdul Ghafor, son of Abdul Bari, grandson of Abdul Karim, a resident of Shajoi district of Zabul province is the inmate who is arrested recently on December 14, ,2019. He is jailed in National Directorate of Security (NDS) prison of Zabul province.

Another inmate who was jailed recently is Jannat Gul, son of Jumma Khan, a resident of the capital of Logar, arrested on November 17, 2019.

But there are also some mistakes in the dates of prisoners’ detention. For example, one prisoner in the list is detained on August 6, 1964 which (or it may be Islamic calendar 1434 which equals to 2013.

Most or 790 of the prisoners in the list are from Kandahar province then Helmand which are 680.

The list includes 250 prisoners from Nangarhar, 231 from Farah, 187 from Herat, 178 from Khost, 171 from MaidanWardak, 169 from Logar, 157 from Kabul, 150 from Kunduz, 142 from Ghazni, 131 from Zabul, 123 from Paktia, 120 from Paktika, 119 from Badghis, 111 from Uruztgan, 106 from Takhar, 105 from Faryab, 105 from Kunar, 104 from Baghlan, 104 from Ghor, 102 from Balkh and 100 from Laghman.

Sar-i-Pul, Jawjzan, Kapisa, Badakhshan, Samangan, Nimroz, Daikundi, Nuristan and Parwan have less than 100 prisoners each mentioned in the list.

Panjsher and Bamyan have each eight or the least number of prisoners mentioned in the list.

According to the source, these prisoners are jailed in the country’s 24 jails which belong to Maidan Wardak, Kandahar, Ghazni, Helmand, Qala-i-Naw, Chaghcharan, Farah, Herat, Jalalabad, Kudnuz, Shiberghan, Faryab, Khost, Balkh, Gardez, Sharana, Aibak, Qalat, Lashkargah, Daikundi, Pul-i-Khumri, Badam Bagh, Bagram, Pul-i-Charkhi jails, but most of them are imprisoned in Bagram and Pul-i-Charkhi.

On the other hand, Taliban’ spokesman for its Qatar office on Friday told media that their delegation would visit Kabul to discuss prisoner’s release.

However, Javid Faisal, spokesman of National Security Council, said no Taliban delegation had visited them, but if they visited Kabul, the Afghan government would ensure their security.

“Whenever the prisoners release is discussed, a hundred Taliban inmates would be released based on their age, health and vulnerability to coronavirus following a presidential decree,” he said.

A US diplomat in Kabul who wished to go unnamed said a list of Afghan government prisoners had also been shared with the Taliban.

However, the Taliban said that the government list had mistakes and was incomplete.

Some of the government prisoners with Taliban in the list have been killed in fights with Daesh and addresses and complete names of others were missing in the government list, Taliban spokesman ZabihullahMujahid told BBC.

Taliban and Afghan officials have talked twice via video conference about prisoners’ release.

mds/ma

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