Afghanistan’s government protested against a US deal to free five high-ranking Taliban militants in exchange for a US soldier arguing the transfer of the men from a Guantanamo Bay jail to Qatar violated international law.
The five prisoners were flown to Qatar on Sunday as part of the agreement to release Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, the only known US prisoner of war in Afghanistan, held captive for five years.
Bergdahl was flown out of Afghanistan to a military hospital in Germany on Sunday.
Photo: AFP
The prisoner swap has stoked anger in Afghanistan, where many view the deal as a further sign of a US desire to disengage from Afghanistan as quickly as possible. Washington has mapped out a plan to fully withdraw all of its troops by the end of 2016.
“No government can transfer citizens of a country to a third country as prisoners,” the Afghan Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement issued late on Sunday.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was excluded from the deal to avoid leaks according to the US government, has not commented on the prisoner swap, although the foreign ministry statement was e-mailed from his media office.
Under the terms of the deal cut by Qatari intermediaries, the five Taliban detainees were released from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they had been held since it opened in 2002, and flown to Qatar where they must stay for a year.
Senior officials at the Afghan intelligence agency say they believe the men will return to the battlefield and bolster the insurgency just as most foreign combat troops prepare to exit by the end of this year.
All five prisoners were classed as “high-risk” and “likely to pose a threat” by the Pentagon and held senior positions in the Taliban regime before it was topped by a US led coalition in 2001.
At least two of them are suspected of committing war-crimes, including the murder of thousands of Afghan Shiites, according to leaked US military cables.
The swap has similarly drawn protest from US Republican politicians who have called it negotiating with terrorists and warned the freed men will likely return to battle.
While Bergdahl’s released on Saturday was celebrated by his family and his hometown, and could be seen as a coup for US President Barack Obama as he winds down the US’ longest war, Senator John McCain and other Republicans questioned whether the administration had acted properly in releasing the militants.
“These are the highest high-risk people. Others that we have released have gone back into the fight,” said McCain, a former prisoner of war and Vietnam War veteran.
“That’s been documented. So it’s disturbing to me that the Taliban are the ones that named the people to be released.” he said on CBS’ Face the Nation.
As the Obama administration sought to counter the criticism, Bergdahl was flown to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany for medical treatment.
After receiving care he would be transferred to another facility in San Antonio, Texas, US defense officials said, without giving a date for his return to the US.
Washington has defended the swap as critical to saving Bergdahl’s life, with officials saying that his health had deteriorated sharply.
“Had we waited and lost him, I don’t think anybody would have forgiven the United States government,” US National Security Adviser Susan Rice said.
Mullah Mohammad Omar, the spiritual leader of the Taliban, issued a rare statement praising the release of the Guantanamo five as a “big victory,” and congratulating “all the mujahidin.”
Bergdahl’s parents, Bob and Jani, held a tearful press conference on Sunday in which they revealed they have yet to speak to their son. They thanked all who were behind the effort to retrieve him.
“Bowe has been gone so long that it’s going to be very difficult to come back,” his father Bob said, likening the process to decompression as a diver slowly resurfaces.
“If he comes up too fast, it could kill him,” Bob Bergdahl said.
Additional reporting by AP
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