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28 December, 2019
By SJA Jafri + Agencies
DOHA/ KABUL/ ISLAMABAD: The Taliban has freed 27 members of an activist group urging peace, two days after abducting them and taking them to an undisclosed location.
The Taliban has released 27 members of a peace group a day after they were abducted in an ambush on their convoy in western Afghanistan, a leader of the activist organization says.
The reason for the activists’ abduction remains unclear, Bismillah Watandost of the People’s Peace Movement of Afghanistan said.
Insurgents ambushed the group in the district of Bala Buluk in Farah province on Tuesday.
They forced the six-vehicle convoy to a halt, then got into the cars and drove them and the activists to an unknown location.
A provincial police operation was launched to locate and free the activists, whose convoy was going village to village to rally for peace in the war-torn country.
Tribal elders in the area also began efforts to secure the safe release of the activists but efforts were hampered by a lack of communications infrastructure in the area and it was not clear who facilitated their release.
Watandost said Taliban elders in Doha had promised the release of the group’s kidnapped members.
The Taliban, who have been active in Farah, have not claimed responsibility for the abductions.
The group holds sway or controls about half of Afghanistan and is at its strongest since the 2001 US invasion.
The Taliban continues to stage near-daily attacks targeting Afghan and US forces, as well as government officials even as they hold peace talks with a US envoy tasked with negotiating an end to the 18-year conflict, America’s longest war.
The latest rallies by activists from the People’s Peace Movement of Afghanistan started on Friday, first in southern Helmand province, a Taliban heartland.
Watandost said the rally would continue to other provinces.
At a similar series of peace rallies in October, the Taliban abducted six activists from the movement in eastern Logar province but released them the same day.
