26 Taliban suspects freed

KABUL: Up to 26 Taliban suspects have been freed from jails in Afghanistan as part of efforts to persuade Islamist insurgents to make peace, Afghan and US officials said on Monday.

The prisoners included men detained by the US military at Bagram Air Base, two in police custody in Kabul and six from a small prison in the eastern province Khost, the officials told AFP.

“They were detained for suspected links to armed opposition groups,” said Nasrullah Stanikzai, advisor to President Hamid Karzai and a member of a government committee assigned to review the cases of the prisoners.“We reviewed their cases one by one. But there was not enough evidence against them,” Stanikzai said.

Stanikzai said 12 of the men were freed from a US-run jail at Bagram, the biggest Nato and US military base in Afghanistan. Michael Gottlieb, a civilian US official dealing with prisoners, however, said 18 had been freed from Bagram after a landmark peace conference on June 2.

The release came after hundreds of tribal elders, religious leaders and other Afghan notables called at the “peace jirga” for ways to get insurgents to lay down their weapons.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 22^nd,  2010.