85 Men Are Determined Harmless and Freed From U.S. Jails in Afghanistan

The U.S. military released 85 Afghans from its jails in Afghanistan on Sunday after deciding they posed no threat and hearing them swear loyalty to the government.

Seventy men were brought from the main American base at Bagram to the capital and freed after a closed-door ceremony, said Rahmat Nadim, an Afghan intelligence service official.

Fifteen more were released from a base near the southern city of Kandahar, where they received gifts, cash and a warning not to side with militants.

“We hope you will go back to your families, live a quiet life and not cooperate with the Taliban,” Kandahar Gov. Gul Agha Shirzai told the men before they were released. “If you work with the government and the coalition, your country will progress.”

There was no apology for the 15 released near Kandahar, but the governor handed each of them $234, a new turban and a letter from the U.S. military confirming their release.

American forces have detained thousands of people since entering Afghanistan in 2001 to oust the Taliban government, which had been harboring Al Qaeda militants.

Most have been released, but many others have spent years in the U.S. jail for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or in rough military jails across Afghanistan, especially Bagram, where several have complained that they were abused by American troops.

Navy Lt. Cindy Moore said the U.S. military had been holding about 600 prisoners before Sunday’s release. Nadim said they had been in custody for three months to almost three years.

“They were detained for a variety of crimes, some of them perhaps based on mistaken intelligence,” Nadim said.

Mohammed Wali, who said he was 15, said he had been detained three months ago with his father-in-law when Afghan and U.S. forces burst into his house in Oruzgan province. He said Afghan troops had beaten him when he was seized but that he had suffered no abuse in American custody.

“At first, they questioned me night and day about the Taliban and weapons,” Wali said. “I told them I had nothing to do with the Taliban.”

Meanwhile Sunday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai urged U.S.-led forces to use “extreme caution” in their pursuit of militants after civilians were killed in an airstrike Friday.

The U.S. military said Saturday that three civilians and four militants were killed in the airstrike in Oruzgan. But Moore, the U.S. spokeswoman, on Sunday cut the official civilian toll to two -- a woman and a child.