US releases 80 Taliban suspects in peace gesture

US releases 80 Taliban suspects in peace gesture
By Declan Walsh

The US military freed 80 suspected Taliban members from custody in Afghanistan yesterday in a move intended to bolster peace talks and hasten the dismantling of the militant Islamist group.

The prisoners were taken from the US airbase at Bagram to Kabul, where they were released into the custody of the chief justice, Fazl Hadi Shinwari. The conservative cleric congratulated the men, told them to return home for Thursday’s Eid al-Adha Muslim holiday, and not to endanger national security again.

Some of the prisoners, who were captured in late 2001 after the fall of the Taliban regime, said they had been ill-treated in US custody.

“They poured water on me, deprived me of sleep and beat me during detention as part of their torture,” 19-year-old Shah Alim told Reuters news agency.

The Afghan authorities were pressing for the release of 400 more prisoners from Bagram and Kandahar, the two main US detention centres, Mr Shinwari told reporters. “The government doesn’t want one prisoner left in jail,” he said.

The coalition authorities, encouraged by the Taliban’s failure to disrupt last October’s presidential election, have stepped up efforts to negotiate an end to the continuing Taliban insurgency. President Hamid Karzai and American commanders have made repeated amnesty offers to entice thousands of low- and mid-ranking Taliban to surrender.

Thousands of Taliban are hiding in the lawless tribal areas of neighbouring Pakistan.

US officers have said as few as 100 top-ranking militants would be arrested and tried; the others would be free to return home to their villages.

In the south-eastern province of Paktika on Saturday the governor, Assadullah Wafa, said hundreds of foot soldiers were ready to abandon the fight. They wanted to “return to their normal lives in Khost, Paktia and Paktika provinces”, he said.

But so far few Taliban have surrendered. Instead, bomb attacks on military convoys have continued in mountainous provinces such as Uruzgan – killing and wounding US and Afghan soldiers – while groups linked to the Taliban have struck elsewhere, including in the capital.

US military operations along the Pakistan border have not encouraged large-scale surrender of Taliban personnel. US troops are frequently accused of employing heavy-handed tactics against villagers suspected of harbouring militants.

The head of the UN refugee agency, Ruud Lubbers, called on the US last week to be “more selective” in its offensive operations.

Human rights groups accuse US forces in Afghanistan of torture and other prisoner abuses similar to those committed in Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq.

At least eight Afghans have died in US custody since October 2001, but only two servicemen have been charged and one reprimanded.

The Afghan camps are also used to interrogate al-Qaida suspects abducted abroad and flown to Afghanistan in a controversial practice known as “rendering”.

German police are investigating claims by a Lebanon-born man who says he was imprisoned in Afghanistan for more than four months before his captors realised they had the wrong man.