Taliban OKs Release of More Iranians

Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban militia agreed Wednesday to release its last group of Iranian prisoners, a move likely to defuse the dangerous tensions that have been building between the two countries.

U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, dispatched to the region to avert a war, made the announcement late Wednesday in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, following a three-hour meeting with the Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar.

A representative of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which also joined the talks, said he expects the Taliban to turn over the Iranians within three days.

“The Taliban said they would free the hostages immediately,” said the organization’s Saleh Zaimi. “Without conditions.”

The crisis began two months ago, when Taliban soldiers killed nine Iranians after capturing a northern Afghan city held by rebels. The Taliban took 50 Iranians hostage there and accused them of being military advisors. Iran claimed that they were truck drivers.

Iranian leaders, threatening to avenge the deaths of their citizens, have mobilized a military force on the Afghan frontier that they say numbers 270,000. The two armies reportedly clashed last week.

In a recent interview in an Afghan prison, the Iranians said they were in good health but wanted to go home.

“Not bad, not good,” was how Abdul Qasim Yazdani Mashad, one of the prisoners, described his treatment at the hands of the Taliban.

Mashad, dressed in Western street clothes, insisted that he was driving a truck full of cooking oil and chocolates when he was captured. “We don’t know about politics,” Mashad, 34, said. “We are only truck drivers.”

The Taliban, which has released some of the Iranians in the past several days, still holds at least 27 Iranian prisoners.

Despite the assurances by Brahimi, there appeared to be some confusion late Wednesday as to exactly what the Taliban had agreed to. Maluvi Abdullahi Mutmain, a Taliban spokesman, said in a telephone interview that Afghan leaders agreed to release the Iranian hostages--but only on the condition that Iranian leaders ensure the release of Taliban fighters held by Tehran.

“Provided we get guarantees, we will release the hostages,” Mutmain said.

Taliban leaders have charged that the Iranians captured 15 of their fighters last month. The Taliban has also accused Iran of killing 56 Afghan refugees and jailing others. The Iranians deny the charges.

Brahimi, the U.N. envoy, was scheduled to fly to Tehran today to meet Iranian leaders.

Zaimi, the OIC representative, said Wednesday that Taliban leaders also agreed to allow an investigation into reports of atrocities committed by Taliban troops in Mazar-i-Sharif, the town captured from rebels in August.

A war between the two fundamentalist governments--each considered a sponsor of terrorism--has raised fears of a wider conflict in the historically unstable region.

Rahimullah Yuzufzai in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.