More Taliban suspects freed in reconciliation drive

KABUL, Sunday (Reuters, Xinhua)

Another 57 Afghans detained as Taliban suspects were freed from U.S. military custody under an Afghan government reconciliation programme.

The men, who had been held at the U.S. military detention centre at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul, were from a group of 199 due to be freed as part of an effort to encourage rank and file Taliban to lay down their arms.

They were taken to the Kabul office of the Takhim-e-Solh "Strengthening Peace" programme and were to be allowed home under the supervision of tribal elders, a U.S. military statement said, adding that the other 142 would be freed later.

The prisoners were the latest freed after President Hamid Karzai called for custody of all Afghan prisoners in U.S. detention following an outcry over reports of abuse, including the deaths of two inmates at Bagram.

Another 53 were freed in June, 86 in May and 81 in January.

Under the Takhim-e-Solh scheme participants do not receive amnesty but agree to renounce violence and pledge their support to Afghanistan, the U.S. statement said.

Some of the 57 said they had been held for up to three years without charge.

"There was no beating or torturing, but they were disrespectful of our culture and we didn't have good food for a long time," said 21-year-old Ghulam Mustafa.

Meanwhile Afghanistan has seen a new surge of violence as Taliban and Afghan troops intensified the attack against each other, in which 33 Taliban militants and 12 Afghan troops were killed during the fight in recent three days. Six Afghan troops were killed and a police chief and his driver wounded Saturday when their convoy hit a roadside bomb in Afghan southeastern province of Paktika, a UN spokesperson said.

Four Afghan police and two soldiers were killed when the roadside bomb exploded the 20-vehicles convoy including UN and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) vehicles, the spokesperson said. The police chief of Paktika province and his driver were slightly hurt in the explosion, but no staff from UN or ISAF was among the casualties, the spokesperson added.

At the same time, Afghan forces also intensified their attack against Taliban. Afghan and US troops killed one Taliban militant Thursday, and killed two more on Saturday when they were patrolling in Afghan southern province of Kandahar, US military said Saturday. In the fight on Friday night, Afghan forces killed 30 Taliban militants in the southern province of Uruzgan, provincial governor said on Saturday.