Pat Dollard | Young Americans

The other day I told you about this

Taliban Trade Pakistan’s Ambassador To Afghanistan, For 40 Terrorists

Bill Roggio over at Long War Journal has more info on WHO it was they traded….

As the Pakistani government nears the completion of a peace deal with Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud, details have emerged on the prisoner swaps between the government and the Taliban. The government has freed a Taliban commander in Afghanistan and a former inmate at Guantanamo Bay along with scores of Taliban fighters in exchange for Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan and captive Pakistani soldiers. The government also paid several hundreds of thousands of dollars in ransom to the Taliban.

The government has released 55 Taliban operatives, including Mufti Yousuf and Muslim Dost, the Asia Times reported. In exchange, the Taliban released Tariq Azizuddin, Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan, along with “dozens” of Pakistani soldiers and paramilitaries captured during battles since last summer. Azizuddin, along with his bodyguard and driver, was kidnapped by the Taliban on Feb. 11 as he headed to Kabul through the Khyber Pass.

Among those released were Mufti Yousuf, a Taliban leader in Afghanistan, and Abdulrahim Muslim Dost, a former prisoner at the US military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Abdulrahim Muslim Dost was arrested along with his brother by Pakistani intelligence in November 2001 for links to al Qaeda. Dost is an Afghan national, a journalist, and a poet. He was a member of al Qaeda ally Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-e Islami and worked for three pro-Taliban publications.

His capture and detention brought condemnation from international human rights groups. While in Guantanamo Bay, Dost wrote poems that “lampooned his military captors, mocking what he perceived as ridiculous - women with men’s haircuts, men without beards,” The Guardian reported.

Dost was freed from Guantanamo Bay in September 2004 after the US military said he was “no longer an enemy combatant.” He was transferred to Afghan custody, where he was freed in April 2005. He returned to Peshawar, where he published The Broken Shackles of Guantanamo. In the book, Dost was critical of Pakistan’s intelligence services and claimed the US military tortured him during his detention. Dost was detained by Pakistani’s Crime Investigation Department in September 2006, much to the consternation of Amnesty International.

Mufti Yousuf is described as “top commander from eastern Afghanistan” by the Asia Times. He served in the Taliban government’s embassy in Pakistan prior to the fall of the regime in 2002. During the US assault on Afghanistan, Yousef shepherded reporters from Pakistan into Afghanistan to report on US airstrikes around Jalalabad in Nangarhar province in November 2001.

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