Taliban Militia Releases 5 Iranians From Afghanistan

The Taliban militia on Saturday freed five Iranians in a goodwill gesture to ease tense relations between the two neighbors and asked Tehran to free Taliban fighters from Iranian jails.

Taliban spokesman Maluvi Abdullahi Mutmain said the five were among “military” drivers captured when the militia seized the northern town of Mazar-i-Sharif from opposition factions last month.

“They were freed this afternoon as a sign of our willingness to improve relations with Tehran,” Mutmain said.

The five were flown to a military air base outside Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, and were met by Iranian Embassy officials who took them away in a car. They made no statement.

The radical Sunni Muslim militia, which controls most of Afghanistan, and its powerful Shiite neighbor have been locked in a war of words since the Taliban admitted that nine missing Iranians, eight of them diplomats, were killed by “renegade” Taliban during the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif.

The movement’s senior spokesman, Wakil Ahmad, said in a telephone conversation from Kandahar that the five men were freed after talks with a Pakistani delegation.

“Now we will see what kind of goodwill gesture Iran will make,” he told the Afghan Islamic Press news agency.

Ahmad repeated Taliban allegations that Afghan refugees in Iran have been mistreated during tension caused by the Taliban’s slaying of the nine Iranians.

He also accused Iranian-backed fighters of taking away 15 Taliban prisoners when the fighters captured the central town of Bamian a week ago, and he demanded their release.

“Our two demands from Iran, which we made to the Pakistani delegation, are that they are behaving badly toward Afghan refugees in Iran and this should stop, and that 15 Taliban prisoners taken from Bamian to Iran and any others should be set free,” Ahmad said.

The Taliban has accused Iran of killing 56 Afghan refugees and of jailing others from the community of 1 million refugees on Iranian soil. But Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency denied those allegations Saturday.

The Taliban’s release of the five Iranians was proposed by Pakistan, one of only three countries that recognize the Taliban as the government in Kabul. Iran backs the government of Burhanuddin Rabbani, which was ousted by the Taliban in September 1996.

“This is another gesture of goodwill by the Afghan government. We very much hope it will pave the way for better relations between our two Muslim brothers,” Pakistan’s ambassador to Kabul, Aziz Kahn, said.

Pakistani and Iranian diplomats witnessed the release.

Mutmain said that the Taliban still holds about 45 Iranians.

Tehran has massed thousands of its elite troops along the border with Afghanistan and says that the Taliban should release all of its nationals from custody and hand over the killers of its nationals.

The Taliban has refused to hand over the culprits to Iran but has repeatedly said that they will be punished for the killings.