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Taliban offer three-month ceasefire in return for prisoner release
[AlAhram] This would be in return for the release of about 7,000 hard boy prisoners held in Afghanistan's jailsAn Afghan government negotiator on Thursday said the Taliban  ...the Pashtun equivalent of men...had offered a three-month ceasefire in exchange for the release of 7,000 hard boy prisoners, as the murderous Moslem group continues a sweeping offensive across the country. "It is a big demand," Nader Nadery said, adding that the turbans have also demanded the removal of the Taliban's leaders from a United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... blacklist. The announcement came as Pakistain guards used tear gas Thursday to disperse hundreds of people who tried to breach a border crossing into Afghanistan, officials said. The frontier was closed a day earlier by Pakistain after the Taliban seized the Afghan side in Spin Boldak district, continuing sweeping gains made by the murderous Moslems since foreign forces stepped up their withdrawal from Afghanistan. "An unruly mob of about 400 people tried to cross the gate forcefully. They threw stones, which forced us to use tear gas," said a security official at the southwest Chaman border on the Pakistain side, who asked not to be named. He said around 1,500 people had gathered at the border, waiting to cross since Wednesday. "We had to baton charge because people were getting unruly," said a second border official, who also did not want to be named. Jumadad Khan, a senior government official in Chaman, said the situation was now "under control". An Afghan Taliban source told AFP that hundreds of people had also gathered on the Afghan side, hoping to get into Pakistain. "We are talking to Pak authorities. A formal meeting to open the border is scheduled for today, and hopefully, it will open in a day or two," he said. The crossing provides direct access to Pakistain's Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... province -- where the Taliban's top leadership has been based for decades -- along with an unknown number of reserve fighters who regularly enter Afghanistan to help bolster their ranks. A major highway leading from the border connects to Pakistain's commercial capital Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... and its sprawling port on the Arabian Sea, which is considered a linchpin for Afghanistan's billion-dollar heroin trade that has provided a crucial source of revenue for the Taliban's war chest over the years. Spin Boldak was the latest in a string of border crossings and dry ports seized by the turbans in recent weeks as they look to choke off revenues much-needed by Kabul while also filling their own coffers. Afghanistan's interior ministry has denied the Taliban have taken the area even as social media was flooded with pictures of hard boy fighters relaxing in the frontier town. Hours after the crossing fell, an AFP news hound on the Pak side saw around 150 Taliban fighters riding on cycle of violences, waving hard boy flags and demanding to be allowed to cross into Afghanistan. Posted by: trailing wife 2021-07-16 |
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