28 Taliban, militants surrender in Afghanistan
PakistanTimes.net Special Report

KHOST (Afghanistan): Twenty-eight Taliban and Islamic fighters surrendered to authorities in insurgency-hit Afghanistan on Sunday and renounced anti-government activities, an official said.

The 28 had returned to Afghanistan from exile in neighbouring Pakistan and gave themselves up in the eastern city of Gardez, the city’s head of intelligence Ghulam Nabi Salim said.

They included 11 former members of the hardline Taliban government ousted four years ago and 12 members of the Hezb-i-Islami led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, on the US most-wanted list, he said.

Five former fighters for Commander Jalaluddin Haqani, also wanted by the United States for links to Al Qaeda, also surrendered, he said.

President Hamid Karzai has offered an amnesty to members of the Taliban movement and Islamic militias ‘whose hands are not stained with innocent people’s blood.’

More than 600 have taken up the offer, including former Taliban foreign minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil and Taliban’s ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaeef.

Four Kidnapped

An Indian engineer was kidnapped with two Afghan police guards and a driver in southwestern Afghanistan, government officials said Sunday, as Taliban militants claimed to have snatched the men.

The four were captured as they were driving on an in Nimroz province, provincial district chief Mohammad Hashim Noorzai told a foreign news agency.

A purported spokesman for the Taliban, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, told in a telephone call to a foreign news agency that the group had kidnapped the men.●