Afghanistan

Pakistan frees former Guantánamo prisoner, Afghan Taliban commander

Bill Roggio at the Long War Journal reports:

Abdulrahim Muslim Dost, a former prisoner at the US military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, was exchanged for Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan.

As the Pakistani government nears the completion of a peace deal with Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud, details have emerged on the prisoner swaps between the government and the Taliban. The government has freed a Taliban commander in Afghanistan and a former inmate at Guantanamo Bay along with scores of Taliban fighters in exchange for Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan and captive Pakistani soldiers. The government also paid several hundreds of thousands of dollars in ransom to the Taliban.

The government has released 55 Taliban operatives, including Mufti Yousuf and Muslim Dost, the Asia Times reported. In exchange, the Taliban released Tariq Azizuddin, Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan, along with “dozens” of Pakistani soldiers and paramilitaries captured during battles since last summer. Azizuddin, along with his bodyguard and driver, was kidnapped by the Taliban on Feb. 11 as he headed to Kabul through the Khyber Pass.

Among those released were Mufti Yousuf, a Taliban leader in Afghanistan, and Abdulrahim Muslim Dost, a former prisoner at the US military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Abdulrahim Muslim Dost was arrested along with his brother by Pakistani intelligence in November 2001 for links to al Qaeda. Dost is an Afghan national, a journalist, and a poet. He was a member of al Qaeda ally Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-e Islami and worked for three pro-Taliban publications.

If Dost was innocent, as his America defense lawyers and other terrorist sympathizers asserted, then why did the Taliban negotiate for his release?

Abdulrahim Muslim Dost (click to enlarge)

Perhaps the Taliban like his poetry or pretty face.

War vets: Finish the job

Within The Arizona Republic today, Steve Russell, who commanded the battalion that captured Saddam Hussein and whose personal heroism earned him the Silver Star, said:

“All the second-guessing is moot, at this point. We are where we are now. A destabilized Iraq is going to have implications for all of us.”

The newspaper’s editorial board agrees with him.

Lieutenant Colonel Russell is crossing the country with the Vets for Freedom National Heroes Tour that will arrive in Washington, D.C., in time to for General Petraeus’ report to Congress. Veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan, or another theatre of the War on Terror, “can sign up to show up on April 8 and tell Congress to support General Petraeus and our fellow troops as they continue to succeed in Iraq and Afghanistan.”