Taliban officials say several of the militant group's members have been freed from Afghan jails, including former shadow governors, the first move of its kind since a peace deal that seemed imminent was declared "dead" and just days after a US envoy met top Taliban leaders in the Pakistani capital. The officials also said the Taliban have released three Indian engineers they had been holding, though that has yet to be confirmed by New Delhi or the Afghan government.
The Taliban officials spoke on Sunday on condition of anonymity because they were not cleared by their leadership to speak to the media.
Shadow governors in northeastern Kunar province and southwestern Nimroz province, Sheikh Abdul Rahim and Maulvi Rashid, were among the Taliban freed, the officials said. The Taliban have established a shadow government throughout the country and in areas under their control they have even established courts. The Associated Press contacted both Afghanistan's defence department and the president's office but they declined to comment.
US peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad met last week with the Taliban's top negotiator Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a co-founder of the hardline Taliban movement and head of a Taliban delegation to the Pakistani capital. The Taliban said they were in Islamabad to discuss the condition of roughly 1.
The meeting is significant and the first Khalilzad has held with the Taliban since last month when US President Donald Trump declared a deal that seemed done, but for the signing, "dead," blaming an uptick in violence by the Taliban, that included the death of a US soldier. Still Trump said he wants to exit Afghanistan, ending America's longest war, and withdraw its 14, troops. While details of Khalilzad's meeting with the Taliban have been sketchy, there have been reports that the two sides did discuss prisoner exchanges, with the freedom of two professors —— an American and an Australian —— of the American University in the Afghan capital featuring in the discussions.
