Taliban: 5 freed from US military prison now in Qatar office

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Five members of the Afghan Taliban who were freed from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in exchange for captured American army Sgt. KABUL (Afghanistan), Oct 31 — Five Taliban leaders swapped for US soldier Bowe Bergdahl in 2014 have joined the group’s political office in Qatar, it said today, where tentative talks to end the Afghan conflict are ongoing. They will now be among Taliban representatives negotiating for peace in Afghanistan, a sign some negotiators in Kabul say indicates the Taliban's desire for a peace pact. Efforts to find a peaceful end to Afghanistan's protracted war have accelerated since Washington appointed Afghan-American Zalmay Khalilzad as envoy to find a peaceful end to America's longest war, which has already cost the U.S. more than $900 billion. Earlier this month, Taliban officials met the recently appointed U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in the Qatari capital Doha, having already met Alice Wells, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia, there earlier in the year. In an unexpected development, Pakistan also bowed to a long-standing Afghan Taliban demand that it release its senior leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who had been in jail in Pakistan since 2010. PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - The Taliban have appointed five former commanders who spent more than a decade as prisoners in Guantanamo Bay as members of the political office in Qatar where they will take part in any future peace talks, officials in the movement said. He said the stature of the five within the insurgent movement will make a peace deal palatable to the rank and file, many of whom have resisted talks believing a military victory was within their grasp. Bergdahl, who had been held in Taliban custody since 2009 when he wandered off a U.S. army base, was given a dishonorable discharge last year and fined $1,000 on charges of desertion and misbehavior.
Five members of the Taliban who were freed by the Obama administration from Guantanamo Bay in exchange for former captive Bowe Bergdahl join the insurgent group’s political office in Qatar.