Pakistan frees top Taliban prisoner Mullah Baradar today.

Pakistan frees top Taliban prisoner Mullah Baradar today.

Mullah Baradar

ISLAMABAD | 21 Sep 2013 ::  Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the senior most Afghan Taliban in Pakistan’s custody, would walk out of detention centre on Saturday amid the hope that he could be the game-changer for the stalemated reconciliation process in Afghanistan.

In order to further facilitate the Afghan reconciliation process, the detained Taliban leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, would be released tomorrow (21 September 2013), said a press release issued by the Foreign Office on Friday.

The announcement came hours after Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and ISI Director General Lt Gen Zaheerul Islam met Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Pakistan’s top official on foreign affairs and national security, earlier in the month had said that Baradar could be released as soon as this month.

“In principle, we have agreed to release him. The timing is being discussed. It should be very soon ... I think within this month,” said Sartaj Aziz, advisor on foreign affairs and national security to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

“Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar will be freed into Pakistan and he will remain in the country until he decides himself to move anywhere he deems necessary to initiate the peace process,” he told Dawn.com on Monday.

Aziz, however, added that the former Taliban second-in-command will not be handed over to Afghanistan. “Handing over the key Taliban commander to Afghanistan will sabotage the purpose behind the decision of releasing him,” he said.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry did not make any statement about his future but an official and a Taliban source in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa said that Baradar was expected to stay at home in Karachi where his family lived.

“He will be kept as a simple guy in the network, who can convey messages from time to time but who will not be able to reintegrate the Shura and regain power,” the Taliban official said.

Born in 1968 in the southern province of Uruzgan, Mullah Baradar fought the occupying Soviet forces in the late 1980s before becoming one of the founding members of the Taliban movement.(Courtesy:Dawn)

Taliban releases 'pointless' for Afghan peace: officials.

Taliban releases 'pointless' for Afghan peace: officials.

Afghan and US officials, at the time of Abdul Ghani
 Baradar's arrest, hadaccused Pakistan of
sabotaging peace efforts by arresting him.

KABUL | AFP | 14 Sep 2013 ::  Afghan officials say Pakistan's release of 33 Taliban prisoners from jail, a policy initially trumpeted by Kabul as an opportunity to ignite peace talks, has resulted in no concrete progress.

The Afghan government, desperately searching for a way to negotiate peace before Nato troops leave next year, has said that the release of influential insurgents could encourage their comrades to the negotiating table.

But despite the 33 Afghan Taliban prisoners released by Pakistan and dozens of others freed in Afghanistan, there is still no peace process and some fighters have returned to the battlefield.

The Taliban still refuse publicly to deal with the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, branding him a US puppet.

They have also shown no willingness to participate in elections on April 5, 2014 when Karzai will step aside for a new leader for the first time since the 2001 US-led invasion.

Instead their readiness to negotiate with the Americans about a prisoner swap has only infuriated Karzai, who late last month asked Pakistan to help find a direct channel of communication.

In parts of Afghanistan, which continue to suffer daily from Taliban violence, the releases have been met with incomprehension if not anger by local government officials.

“The Taliban who are released... rejoin the battlefield again,” said Zurawar Zahid, police chief of the flashpoint southern province of Ghazni.

“We put our lives in danger to arrest them, but the central government releases them under different pretences,” he added.

Zahid told AFP that more than 40 Taliban, including some senior commanders, who were recently freed from Ghazni central prison on Karzai's orders have gone back to the battlefield.(Courtesy:Dawn)