–Taliban commanders released on ‘special
request’ made by US, Qatari leadership
ISLAMABAD:
Pakistan has finally released Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar
alias Mullah Baradar and two other Taliban leaders to help facilitate the
Afghan peace process being supported by the United States (US) and other
friendly countries.
Mullah
Mohammad Rasul and Mullah Abdul Samad Sani are the other two key Taliban
figures who have been released by Pakistan.
Baradar
was the deputy of Mullah Mohammed Omar, the founding leader of Taliban, whose
death was confirmed in October 2016. He was apprehended by Pakistani forces
from Karachi back in the year 2010.
Mullah
Mohammad Rasul is the leader of the High Council of Afghanistan Islamic
Emirate, a Taliban group in Afghanistan and was a Taliban-appointed governor of
the Nimroz province. Rasul, who refused to pledge allegiance to Taliban’s new
leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, was detained by Pakistani security
personnel in 2016.
Mullah
Abdul Samad Sani, on the other hand, was arrested in a Pakistani security
agency raid on a madrassa in Quetta in 2016.
The
release, which has also been confirmed by a Taliban spokesperson, comes after
back-to-back meetings of US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for
South and Central Asian Affairs Ambassador Alice Wells and US Special Envoy for
Afghanistan Reconciliation Process Zalmay Khalilzad with the emissaries of
Afghan Taliban.
Sources
told Pakistan Today that Mullah Baradar and two other Taliban commanders had
been released two days back on a “special request” made by the US and Qatari
leadership to facilitate the Afghan peace process.
It
merits a mention here that a high-level Qatari delegation, led by Deputy Prime
Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammed Bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani,
had visited Islamabad and met the Pakistani leadership.
Mullah
Baradar is one of the four men who founded Taliban in Afghanistan back in the
year 1994. Baradar held several senior positions in the Taliban government
before its fall in 2001.
It is believed that
Baradar’s release would help persuade Afghan Taliban to lay down arms and
negotiate in new peace talks.
