Taliban releases 20 prisoners of Afghan government

The Taliban has released 20 prisoners of Afghan government from its captivities after hundreds of inmate insurgents were released by the government over the last few days.

Suhail Shaheen, the group’s political spokesman said that the Taliban handed the prisoners over to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in southern Kandahar province Sunday.

Jalaluddin Shinwari, Former Attorney General for the Taliban regime  said, “These 20 prisoners are not released for exchange but for goodwill.”

Although the Taliban previously said that most of the prisoners who were released by the government are unknown, but now it confirmed that most of the released inmates were according to its list.

Sayed Akbar Agha, the former Taliban commander said, “The prisoners are according to the list provided by the Taliban.”

Khalil Safi, head of the Afghanistan peace center said, “The US should put pressure on both sides in order for the peace talks to start.”

This comes as the Afghan government released the third batch of 100 Taliban prisoners on Sunday bringing the total number of released prisoners by the government to 300, while the Taliban only released 20.

Based on the US-Taliban deal, before the Intra-Afghan talks start, five thousand prisoners of the Taliban and 1,000 prisoners of the Afghan government should be released, however, the process faced some challenges when the Taliban demanded 15 of their senior commanders to be released.