Ex-Taliban fighters are released in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan — The U.S. military released 81 Afghan prisoners from detention on Sunday in what Afghanistan's chief justice, Fazel Hadi Shinwari, described as the first stage of a reconciliation program under which many suspected Taliban fighters held by the Americans might be freed over the coming months.

In an effort to end the insurgency by fighters for the Taliban movement, which was ousted three years ago, the Afghan government has promised former Taliban supporters an amnesty and a place in public life if they renounce violence and return to a peaceful life. President Hamid Karzai has said that he will seek to prosecute only the top leadership of the movement — about 100 people.

The release of prisoners was arranged by a senior adviser for Karzai, and by Shinwari, who addressed the men in Kabul on Sunday before they were fed and sent home.

In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Barry Venable, said the U.S. military had nothing to add to the announcements made by the Afghan government.

Unlike those who were transported to the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Afghan prisoners released on Sunday never left Afghanistan, and defense officials said that for that reason Washington would defer to Kabul in announcements about their release.

Col. David Lamm, chief of staff for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, was quoted by Agence France-Presse as saying that the release was a gesture of reconciliation ahead of Muslim holidays this week.

"President Karzai has indicated on many occasions this notion of a national forgiveness or reconciliation," Lamm was quoted. "If that occurs, we would suspect that many of the foot-soldier Taliban would be able to come back in and reintegrate with Afghan society and participate in the peaceful democratic political process."

Some of the detainees were not seen as high-level threats to the 18,000 troops led by the U.S. military who are stationed in the country, Lamm was quoted as saying. Some had been arrested because they had been at the scene of attacks on American or Afghan troops, he said. After the Taliban failed in its effort to disrupt presidential elections in October in any major fashion, there have been signs that the U.S. military is preparing to scale down its offensive operations against these fighters in the southern and eastern parts of the country. The Afghan government at the same time is clearly anxious to respond to the complaints of communities where U.S. forces have continued to raid houses and make arrests. Many families have complained that U.S. troops have detained innocent people on false information.