Taliban five arrive in Qatar after swap deal

[Shah-i-Kot]

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/06/taliban-five-arrive-qatar-after-swap-deal-20146113536748321.html

Taliban five arrive in Qatar after swap deal
Senior commanders fly to Gulf after being freed from Guantanamo Bay in swap deal for US soldier held in Afghanistan.


Last updated: 01 Jun 2014 20:09


Five Taliban leaders have arrived in Qatar after being freed from Guantanamo Bay in a swap deal for a US soldier held in Afghanistan for nearly five years.
The prisoners were flown by US military C-17 aircraft into the Gulf on Sunday. They were named on Saturday as Mohammad Fazl, Mullah Norullah Noori, Mohammed Nabi, Khairullah Khairkhwa and Abdul Haq Wasiq.
The Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Omar, on Sunday hailed their release as a "big victory".

"I extend my heartfelt congratulations to the entire Afghan Muslim nation, all the mujahideen and to the families and relatives of the prisoners for this big victory," he said in a statement on Sunday. "I thank the government of Qatar, especially its emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad [Al Thani], who made sincere efforts for release of these leaders and for their mediation and for hosting them."
The men were swapped for Bowe Bergdahl, a 28-year-old army sergeant who had been held by the Taliban since June 30, 2009.
The Qatari foreign minister, Khalid bin Mohamed Al Attiyah, said his country's role was purely humanitarian.
"When Qatar takes the role of intermediary, it plays this role on a humanitarian basis which is the whole concept of Qatar foreign relations," he said.
The five Taliban are understood to be limited to living in Qatar for their first year of freedom, a condition that the Afghan government on Sunday said was against "international law" and called for their immediate release.
A White House official told Al Jazeera on Saturday that the US administration would not have transferred prisoners from Guantanamo "unless the threat they may pose to the US can be mitigated".
He said the Taliban prisoners would be "subject to restrictions on their movement and activities".
The five were high-ranking members of the Taliban government toppled by the US in 2001. Fazl was the deputy defence minister, while Noori was the governor of Balkh province.
Bergdahl was handed to US troops by the Taliban on Saturday evening in an area of eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border. Officials said the exchange was not violent and Bergdahl was in good condition and able to walk.

[Shah-i-Kot]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...0EE1AD20140603


Qatar allowing freed Taliban men to move freely in country: Gulf official

DOHA Tue Jun 3, 2014 9:05am EDT

(Reuters) - Qatar has moved five Afghan Taliban prisoners freed in exchange for a U.S. soldier to a residential compound and will let them move freely in the country, a senior Gulf official said on Tuesday, a step likely to be scrutinized by Washington.
U.S. officials have referred to the release of the Islamist militants as a transfer and said they would be subject to certain restrictions in Qatar. One of the officials said that would include a minimum one-year ban on them traveling outside of Qatar as well as monitoring of their activities.
"All five men received medical checks and they now live with their families in an accommodation facility in Doha," the Gulf source, who declined to be identified, told Reuters. "They can move around freely within the country."
Following the deal under which freed the last American soldier held in Afghanistan was freed, concerns have been expressed by some U.S. intelligence officials and congressional advisers over the role of the Gulf Arab state as a bridge between Washington and the world of radical Islam.
The Gulf official said the Taliban men, who have been granted Qatari residency permits, will not be treated like prisoners while in Doha and no U.S. officials will be involved in monitoring their movement while in the country.
"Under the deal they have to stay in Qatar for a year and then they will be allowed to travel outside the country... They can go back to Afghanistan if they want to," the official said.
The five, who had been held at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba since 2002, arrived in Qatar on Sunday where U.S. security personnel handed them over to Qatari authorities in the Al Udeid area west of Doha, site of a U.S. military base.
U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl had been held for nearly five years by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan and his release followed years of on-off negotiations.
A diplomatic source said Qatar has flown in family members of the five released Taliban men and gave them accommodation paid for by the government.
On Sunday, Qatari Foreign Minister Khaled al-Attiyah told a news conference that Doha got involved in the case because it was a “humanitarian cause". He did not elaborate.
(Reporting by Amena Bakr; Editing by Sami Aboudi and Mark Heinrich)