Afghanistan To Exchange High Profile Taliban Prisoners For American, Australian Hostages

The Afghan government and the Taliban made a deal to free the American and Australian hostages in exchange for three important Taliban figures.

On Tuesday, officials from both sides agreed to release the American University of Afghanistan professors American Kevin C. King, 63, and Australian Timothy J. Weeks, 50, for three senior Taliban personnel including Annas Haqqani, the younger brother of Taliban’s military operations leader.

Afghanistan president Ashraf Ghani said that his government would also release Hafiz Rashid who equipped and assisted suicide bombers, and Hajji Mali Khan, a senior commander an uncle of the Taliban deputy leader.

The swap was intended to broker peace between the United States and the insurgents, and to eventually form a truce but in October, the Talibans refused to negotiate with the government which declared that no further negotiations with Taliban would be made unless a ceasefire held for at least a month.

Mr. Ghani said that the decision had been tough but important and reportedly, he would not publicly announce the release of the Taliban prisoners unless the group provided evidence that Kings and Weeks are alive.

According to the New York Times, King and Weeks were abducted in Kabul by insurgents in 2016 and the American special envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, employed intensive efforts to have the hostages released.

Mr. Ghani did not disclose the location of the two professors and only mentioned that their health had deteriorated in captivity.

The two hostages were last seen in a video released by Taliban in 2017 where the professors begged President Trump to secure their release.