The Afghan government began releasing the last batch of Taliban prisoners in preparation for the start of political negotiations with the movement in the Qatari capital, Doha, after the Supreme Council of the Tribes (the Loya Jirga) approved the release, while the United States announced its intention to reduce its forces in Afghanistan to less than 5,000.
Al-Jazeera correspondent quoted security sources in the Kabul government as confirming that 400 detainees from the Taliban movement have been released since yesterday, Saturday, and they are the last batch of a total of 5,000 detainees released by the Kabul authorities in batches in the past few months.
On the other hand, the Taliban ended more than a week before the release of the 1,000 government forces that they had arrested, according to an agreement signed by the movement last February in the Qatari capital with the US government, with the aim of ending the 19-year-old war in the country.
The stumbling block of the prisoner exchange file between the Taliban and the Afghan authorities constituted a major obstacle to launching peace talks between the two parties, who affirmed their commitment to complete the prisoner exchange process before the start of negotiations.
The Afghan government chooses the Qatari capital, # Doha, as a place to hold negotiations with the Taliban movement ... # Qatar has succeeded in reaching an agreement between America and the Taliban after an 18-year war and bringing peace to #Afghanistan..Interventions
#Qatar establishes peace ... and the interventions # The Ungodly Alliance destroy countries and societies. .
- Jaber Al-Harami (@jaberalharmi) August 8, 2020
The Loya Jirga
The Afghan tribal leaders had agreed yesterday to release these detainees at the conclusion of the "Loya Jirga" today, in preparation for the start of the intra-Afghan negotiations in Doha.
The meeting of the Supreme Council of Tribes called in its final statement to start the Afghan talks without delay, and asked the government to release foreign detainees and hand them over to their countries. At the conclusion of the sessions of the "Loya Jirga" meeting, Afghan President Muhammad Ashraf Ghani said that he would sign today an official decision regarding the release of the remaining prisoners of Taliban detainees, based on the recommendation of the tribal leaders.
The French Press Agency stated that the official list of prisoners to be released - which the agency reviewed - includes a large number of those convicted of serious crimes, and many of them were involved in attacks that killed dozens of Afghans and foreigners, and included 150 people on death row, according to the agency.
The head of the Afghan Reconciliation Committee, Abdullah Abdullah, said yesterday that all remaining Taliban detainees in the prisons are Afghans, and none of them are foreign fighters, indicating that negotiations will start three days after their release.
American forces
In a related context, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said that his country will reduce the number of its soldiers in Afghanistan to less than 5 thousand by the end of next November, and added - in an interview with US Fox News - that the withdrawal process will be subject to field conditions.
It is noteworthy that the Doha agreement concluded between the United States and the Taliban paves the way - according to a timetable - for a gradual US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
In a separate context, Al-Jazeera correspondent quoted a security source as saying that 7 Afghan policemen were killed, and 16 others were wounded in a bomb explosion targeting the headquarters of the Afghan forces in Ghazni Province, in the center of the country.