Afghan govt starts releasing ‘dangerous’ Taliban prisoners

KABUL:AFGHAN authorities said on Friday they have started to release 400 Taliban prisoners, the final hurdle in long-delayed peace talks between the two warring sides, even as President Ashraf Ghani warned they were a “danger to the world”.

The Afghan government and the Taliban are set to meet within days of the prisoner release being completed, in a move that has drawn widespread condemnation after it emerged many of the inmates were involved in attacks that killed scores of Afghans and foreigners. A group of 80 prisoners had been released on Thursday, National Security Council spokesman Javid Faisal said, tweeting that it would “speed up efforts for direct talks and a lasting, nationwide ceasefire”.

The release of 400 militants was approved at the weekend by a gathering of thousands of prominent Afghans who said they wanted to pave the way for talks to begin in Doha, Qatar, and a possible ceasefire.

The prisoners include at least 44 insurgents of particular concern to the United States and other countries for their role in high-profile attacks.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said earlier this week he had lobbied for a former Afghan army soldier, who went rogue and killed three Australian colleagues, to stay in jail.

Ghani warned on Thursday that the hardened criminals were “likely to pose a danger both to us and to (America) and to the world”.

“Until this issue, there was a consensus on the desirability of peace but not on the cost of it,”

Ghani said in a video conference organised by a US think tank.

“We have now paid the major instalment on cost and that means peace will have consequences.”

A prisoner swap formed part of a deal signed by the Taliban and the US in February, which saw Washington agree to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan in return for various commitments from the insurgents including a pledge to hold peace talks with the Afghan government.

The government was excluded from that deal, which stipulated Kabul release 5,000 militants in return for 1,000 Afghan government prisoners held by the insurgents.

The Taliban have warned of possible attacks against the freed prisoners by Islamic State jihadists in coordination with Afghanistan’s spy agency.