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
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner yesterday signed a coalition deal, paving the way for Sanae Takaichi to become the nation’s first female prime minister. The 11th-hour agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) came just a day before the lower house was due to vote on Takaichi’s appointment as the fifth prime minister in as many years. If she wins, she will take office the same day. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you on efforts to make Japan’s economy stronger, and to reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations,”
SEVEN-MINUTE HEIST: The masked thieves stole nine pieces of 19th-century jewelry, including a crown, which they dropped and damaged as they made their escape The hunt was on yesterday for the band of thieves who stole eight priceless royal pieces of jewelry from the Louvre Museum in the heart of Paris in broad daylight. Officials said a team of 60 investigators was working on the theory that the raid was planned and executed by an organized crime group. The heist reignited a row over a lack of security in France’s museums, with French Minister of Justice yesterday admitting to security flaws in protecting the Louvre. “What is certain is that we have failed, since people were able to park a furniture hoist in the middle of
RSS