U.S. Considers Release Of Taliban Prisoner To Afghanistan To Promote Peace Deal

The United States is mulling releasing Mohammed Fazi, a “high risk detainee” who’s been held at Guantanamo since 2002.

As a senior commander of the Taliban army, Fazl is alleged to be responsible for the killing of thousands of Afghanistan’s minority Shi’ite Muslims between 1998 and 2001…

Michael Semple, a former UN official with more than two decades of experience in Afghanistan, said Fazl commanded thousands of Taliban soldiers at a time when its army carried out massacres of Shi’ites. “If you’re head of an army that carries out a massacre, even if you’re not actually there, you are implicated by virtue of command and control responsibility,” he said…

Despite the congressional concerns that released Taliban will return to the battlefield, Semple said it was unlikely even prisoners like Fazl – who truly was a significant military figure for the Taliban – would alter that equation.

“These people are not going to make a real contribution to the Taliban war effort even if they are able to go over to Quetta and rejoin the fight. It’s not risky in battlefield terms; it’s only risky in U.S. political terms.”

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.