Taliban Releases 25 Additional Afghan Gov’t Prisoners: Shaheen

The armed Taliban released additional 25 prisoners of the Afghan government on Monday, July 13, a spokesman for the group took to Twitter.

Suhail Shaheen, a spokesman for the office of the Taliban in Qatar, said the group had released additionally 25 inmates of the Afghan government from its custody in the southern Kandahar province.

The group announced earlier on Sunday, July 12, that it released a dozen more prisoners of the Afghan government in the southern Kandahar province.

The Taliban has claimed that under the February’s peace pact, it has released roughly 800 prisoners of the Afghan government so far whereas the Afghan government announced nearly 500 of the inmates were from the Afghan forces–the rest were all civilians.

The Afghan government, as per reports, has so far released nearly 4,200 of the insurgent group’s captives.

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The Afghan government has released 180 Taliban prisoners recently, pushing the total number of prisoners released to 4,199.

Under a peace accord struck between the United States and the Taliban, the relevant sides are committed to put efforts to release prisoners as a confidence-building measure.

The United States and the Taliban signed a peace pact in February 29 under which the Afghan government was required to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners and for the insurgents to release 1,000 pro-government captives in return.