Afghan elders to decide fate of 400 Taliban inmates during Loya Jirga

[Kailash Kumar]

Afghan elders to decide fate of 400 Taliban inmates

On heels of 3-day Eid ceasefire, troubled Afghan peace parlay hinges on sluggish prison swap

Shadi Khan Saif

04.08.2020

KABUL, Afghanistan

The Afghan government on Monday decided to hold a grand consultative "Loya Jirga" on the fate of 400 Taliban prisoners that the insurgents insist must be freed before peace talks.

Presidential spokesman Sediq Seddiqi told a press conference Monday that without any further delay, more than 3,000 older adults from across the country would gather in Kabul to decide on the fate of these captive insurgents and other key issues such as a ceasefire extension, intra-Afghan talks and other issues to be discussed by the Loya Jirga.

“The criticism [about holding a grand consultative Loya Jirga] would have been correct had we took time and delayed it, but it is going to be held on Aug. 7,” he said.

These 400 inmates are on the government’s "black list" for their "serious crimes," and the US has approved that direct talks between the Taliban and Afghan government would begin even if 4,600 insurgents out of 5,000 proposed by the US-Taliban deal are freed, Seddiqi added.

The Loya Jirga is the highest level of consultation of Afghan elders over a very serious issue of national concern. On heels of a three-day cease-fire, troubled Afghan peace parlay fringes on sluggish prison swap.

A day earlier, on the third and last day of the cease-fire during the eid, the Afghan government announced releasing over 300 Taliban prisoners in connection with the peace parlay taking the total of freed insurgents to 4,917.

The Taliban vowed to have already completed their part of the prisoners’ swap -- releasing 1,000 captive security forces.

The insurgents announced a surprise cease-fire in during the three-day Eid holiday that started on July 31. The Afghan government welcomed and reciprocated the move with President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani pledging to wrap-up the troubled prison swap with the Taliban and urging them to get ready for talks in a week.

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/afghan-elders-to-decide-fate-of-400-taliban-inmates/1930626#

 

[Bengal71]

I haven't been keeping up with Afghan news. What's happening with American withdrawal?

 

[Kailash Kumar]

I haven't been keeping up with Afghan news. What's happening with American withdrawal?

@Bengal71

A recent article on U.S. presence in Afghanistan.

Trump suggests U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan could be cut in half by Election Day

Leo Shane III

1 hour ago

President Donald Trump said he expects U.S. troop numbers in Afghanistan to be under 5,000 by election day in November and called America’s involvement in the Middle East “the single biggest mistake in the history of our country” in an interview with Axios released Monday night.

U.S. military forces have already dropped by more than 3,000 personnel this year, bringing the American military footprint to about 8,500 troops, around the same level as when Trump took office in 2017.

When pressed if that force level represented a real change in strategy in the region — where U.S. forces have been deployed for nearly 19 years — Trump said that he expected the troop levels to drop by half “very soon.”

“We’re going down to 4,000, we’re negotiating right now,” Trump said. “I don’t want to tell you (when). But I’ve always said we will get largely out.”

When asked what the levels would be on Election Day in November, Trump said he expected “between 4,000 and 5,000″ troops there.

Military leaders and numerous members of Congress have cautioned against too quick of a withdrawal from the region, saying it could destabilize Afghan security forces currently receiving support and logistical help from U.S. service members.

Last month, House lawmakers in a bipartisan vote approved limits on the administration’s power to reduce the U.S. troops numbers in Afghanistan below 8,000 without meeting clear security benchmarks first. That measure still must be approved by the Senate.

Critics of the ongoing war have countered that the United States has remained in the region well past any useful mission, and that Trump should not leave American troops there indefinitely.

Trump has alternated between the two sides, repeatedly pledging to end U.S. involvement in the war but also agreeing to military plus-ups in the region during the course of his presidency. As many as 14,000 U.S. troops have been deployed to the region in recent years, after former President Obama reduced that force size to under 9,000 by the end of his term.

In the Axios interview, Trump brushed off assertions that he hasn’t done enough to end the war in Afghanistan, saying that his administration has been tougher on terrorist groups than any other.

“We took out ISIS in Syria,” he said. “When I took over, it was totally rampant, ISIS was all over the place. We took them out, we captured them, we killed them …

“I’ve done things that no other president has done. We should have never been in the Middle East. To get into the Middle East was the single biggest mistake made in the history of our country.”

The interview took place on July 28 but was released in full Monday night. Last week, Axios made public parts of the interview where Trump acknowledged that he had not pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin on intelligence reports that Russian officials had offered bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan, saying he did not find them credible.

“We did not discuss (the bounties issue),” Trump said. “It never reached my desk, because intelligence (officials) didn’t think it was real. If it had reached my desk, I would have done something about it.”

The full interview is available on the Axios web site.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/...anistan-could-be-cut-in-half-by-election-day/

 

[Kailash Kumar]

Afghanistan to release 400 'hard-core' Taliban to start peace talks

Hamid Shalizi, Hameed Farzad

AUGUST 9, 2020

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan agreed on Sunday to release 400 “hard-core” Taliban prisoners, paving the way for the beginning of peace talks aimed at ending more than 19 years of war.

Under election-year pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump for a deal allowing him to bring home American troops, the war-torn country’s grand assembly, or Loya Jirga, on Sunday approved the release, a controversial condition raised by the Taliban militants to join peace talks.

“In order to remove an obstacle, allow the start of the peace process and an end of bloodshed, the Loya Jirga approves the release of 400 Taliban,” the assembly said in a resolution.

Minutes later, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said, “Today, I will sign the release order of these 400 prisoners.”

Last week Ghani invited some 3,200 Afghan community leaders and politicians to Kabul amid tight security and concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic to advise the government on whether the prisoners should be freed.

With the release, the Afghan government will fulfil its pledge to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners.

Talks between the warring Taliban and government will start in Doha this week, Western diplomats said. Ghani appealed to the hardline Islamist group to pledge to a complete ceasefire ahead of talks.

Deliberation over the release of last batch of Taliban prisoners, accused of conducting some of the bloodiest attacks across Afghanistan, had triggered outrage among civilians and rights groups who questioned the morality of the peace process.

In 2019 alone, more than 10,000 civilians were killed or injured in the conflict in Afghanistan, putting total casualties in the past decade over 100,000, a United Nations report said last year.

Ahead of the Loya Jirga, Human Rights Watch cautioned that many of the prisoners had been jailed under “overly broad terrorism laws that provide for indefinite preventive detention”.

Ahead of November U.S. elections, Trump is determined to fulfil a major campaign promise of ending America’s longest war.

The drawdown will bring the number of U.S. troops to “a number less than 5,000” by the end of November, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in an interview broadcast on Saturday.

In a February pact allowing for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, Washington and the Taliban agreed on the release of the Taliban prisoners as a condition for the talks with Kabul.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-a...re-taliban-to-start-peace-talks-idUKKCN25507N