Pakistan frees Afghan Taliban held since 2010

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan freed the Afghan Taliban’s former deputy leader on Saturday after years of detention in a move that many officials in Islamabad and Kabul hope will aid Afghanistan’s struggling peace process.

But others doubt Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar’s release will do much good, and the United States, which opposed the move, is worried he could return to the battlefield. That could give the Taliban in Afghanistan a boost at a time when the U.S. is drawing down its troops and increasingly relying on Afghan forces to fight insurgents.

Kabul has demanded that Islamabad free Baradar since he was arrested in a joint raid in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi in 2010 after holding secret peace talks with the Afghan government. Pakistanresisted for years, exacerbating already tense relations with neighboring Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s change of heart came amid a renewed push to help strike a peace deal between the Taliban and the Afghan government before the U.S. withdraws most of its combat troops by 2014. Pakistan is increasingly worried that further instability in Afghanistan could make it more difficult to fight Islamic militants at home.

Baradar was released Saturday morning, said Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry. The spokesman didn’t provide further details, including where Baradar was held.

Baradar will remain in Pakistan after his release and will be provided with tight security, said Pakistani intelligence and security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.He will be free to meet with anyone he chooses, they said.

Baradar’s family members, who live in Karachi, had not heard from him by Saturday evening, said a family friend, speaking on condition of anonymity because he did not have the family’s permission to talk to the media.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s spokesman welcomed Baradar’s release and urged Pakistan to ensure that he is accessible to Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, which is to negotiate with the Taliban. “We want Mullah Baradar to be safe and accessible with reachable address, so he can contribute to the Afghan peace process,” spokesman Aimal Faizi said in a statement. Baradar, who is about 50 years old, was one of the founding members of the Taliban along with the group’s leader, Mullah Omar. He served as a senior military leader and deputy defenseminister after the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in 1996.

The U.S. asked Pakistan to keep Baradar under house arrest rather than set him free, said senior Pakistani and American officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Pakistan refused the request, saying it would infuriate the Afghan government and the Taliban, said the American official. The U.S. believes Baradar is one of the smartest members of the Taliban and is worried he could help the group in its battle against Afghan security forces if he rejoins the insurgency, the official said.

“Obviously, it’s important that coordination between Pakistan and Afghanistan takes place to ensure that any releases are done in a responsible manner,” U.S. State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said Friday before Baradar was freed.

The circumstances surrounding Baradar’s arrest in Karachi were murky. Afghan officials said at the time that he was holding secret peace talks with Karzai and accused Pakistan of arresting him to sabotage or gain control of the process. Baradar and Karzai are from the same tribe.

But American officials said the CIA was the driving force behind the arrest and that Pakistani security forces who participated in the raid did not know they were detaining Baradar.

Also on Saturday, an Afghan wearing a security-forces uniform turned his weapon against foreign troops, killing three Americans in eastern Afghanistan, NATO and Afghan officials said, in another apparent attack by a member of the Afghan forces against their international allies.

The shooting took placein Gardez, capital of eastern Paktia province, said Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, an Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman. The area, near the border with Pakistan, has been a front line in fighting with the Taliban and other militants.

The attack took place inside a base of the Afghan army in the city, according to a security official in Gardez, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give details while the attack was still under investigation.

The U.S. Defense Department confirmed that the three casualties were Americans. A department official said no further details will be released until the troops’ relatives are notified.

Information for this article was contributed by Munir Ahmed, Patrick Quinn, Rahim Faiez and Deb Riechmann of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 11 on 09/22/2013

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