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Hundreds of Taliban prisoners freed

SHIBARGHAN, (AFGHANISTAN), MARCH. 23. Hundreds of former Taliban fighters were freed in a goowill gesture in this northern Afghan town today, but thousands were still held in appalling conditions in one of Afghanistan's harshest prisons.

Heavy prison gates were flung open and most of the 258 released captives poured out in a chaotic and jubilant mass from the prison of Shibarghan where they had been kept for four months.

Groups of relatives, tears in their eyes, rushed to hug their emaciated but happy kinsmen, some of whom could not walk on their own and were supported or carried by their fellows.

Minutes earlier the inmates, soaked by rain and huddled in the muddy prison yard, had heard the Deputy Defence Minister, Abdul Rashid Dostum, say that the Afghan interim leader, Hamid Karzai, had ordered their release in a sign of reconciliation marking the spring holiday of Nauroz.

Mr. Karzai said at Thursday's Nauroz festivities that a total of 300 Shibarghan captives would be freed to mark the holiday, which celebrates the spring equinox and the New Afghan year, revived after being banned for years by the purist Taliban movement.

``Today is the happiest day in my life,'' 18-year old Muhammaddin told Reuters before leaving the prison.

``I will now return to my home and will serve only my mother and father,'' said the pale and weary peasant dressed in tatters. Like most of the more than 3,000 prisoners held in this town some 130 km west from the regional capital of Mazar-i-Sharif, Muhammaddin was captured after laying down his arms following fighting in nearby Konduz province in the U.S.-led ``war on terror''.

And like the other lucky ones he clutched a yellow temporary identity card and one million Afghanis ($15) provided by the Red Cross.

- Reuters

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