Afghan peace deal likely with armed group

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan is expected to soon finalize a peace deal with a notorious militant group in what could be a template for ending the 15-year war with the Taliban, a government official and a representative of the militant group said Saturday.

The deal is partly symbolic as the group in question, Hezb-iIslami, has been largely inactive for years, but it marks a breakthrough for President Ashraf Ghani, who has made little progress in reviving peace talks with the far more powerful Taliban.

Under the 25-point agreement, Hezb-i-Islami would end its war against the government, commit to respecting the Afghan constitution and cease all contact with other insurgents. In return its members would receive amnesty and its prisoners would be released.

Ataul Rahman Saleem, deputy head of the High Peace Council — a government body charged with negotiating an end to the war — said the deal could be com- pleted on Sunday, after two years of negotiations. A senior representative of Hezb-i-Islami, Amin Karim, also said he expected Ghani to approve the final version of the agreement on Sunday.

Hezb-i-Islami is led by warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whose forces killed thousands of people in Kabul during the 1992-1996 civil war. He is believed to be in Paki- stan, though Karim has said he is in an unspecified location in Afghanistan. He could soon return to Kabul to sign a formal peace deal and take up residence.

Hekmatyar, in his late 60s, is designated a “global terrorist” by the U.S. and blacklisted by the U.N. The agreement obliges the Afghan government to work toward lifting those restrictions.