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Afghans pressed to explain release of Ghulam Rasoul
The Afghan government was asked on Thursday night to explain why it released a former Guantanamo Bay detainee who has gone on to mastermind attacks on British troops in Helmand, The Times reported on Saturday.Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, who operates under the nom de guerre Mullah Abdullah Zakir, has been in charge of Taliban attacks in the province since early last year when he was released from prison in Kabul. The report quoted Patrick Mercer, Conservative chairman of the Commons counter-terrorism subcommittee, as saying that it was extraordinary that a man of his record could be freed to go back to his old ways. Rasoul had been transferred there from Guantanamo in December 2007 after a US review board deemed him no longer a threat. Taliban sources have since told The Times that he was a senior commander at the time of his capture in 2001 and that the Afghan authorities should have known that. Mr Mercer said: "The Americans presumably let him go from Guantanamo Bay in order for him to be kept in custody in Afghanistan. We need to know why the Afghan authorities released him." A Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokesman said: "We talk to the Afghan authorities about security matters but we can't give any details because it's quite sensitive." The circumstances of Mr Rasoul's release remain unclear. On his release from Guantanamo he was sent to Block D in Pul-e-Charkhi prison in Kabul, a maximum-security wing renovated by the Americans largely to hold the most dangerous Guantanamo detainees. Posted by: Fred 2009-03-14 |
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