Afghan President: 400 Taliban Prisoners to Remain in Custody

In this March, 1, 2020, file photo, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani speaks during a news conference at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani dashed hopes Friday, July 31, 2020 of an early start to negotiations with Taliban insurgents, announcing the final 400 Taliban prisoners whose release is a prerequisite to start talks, will remain jailed. The announcement frustrates U.S. efforts to find an end to Afghanistan's years of relentless war. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File)
In this March, 1, 2020, file photo, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani speaks during a news conference at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani dashed hopes Friday, July 31, 2020 of an early start to negotiations with Taliban insurgents, announcing the final 400 Taliban prisoners whose release is a prerequisite to start talks, will remain jailed. The announcement frustrates U.S. efforts to find an end to Afghanistan's years of relentless war. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File)
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Afghan President: 400 Taliban Prisoners to Remain in Custody

In this March, 1, 2020, file photo, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani speaks during a news conference at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani dashed hopes Friday, July 31, 2020 of an early start to negotiations with Taliban insurgents, announcing the final 400 Taliban prisoners whose release is a prerequisite to start talks, will remain jailed. The announcement frustrates U.S. efforts to find an end to Afghanistan's years of relentless war. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File)
In this March, 1, 2020, file photo, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani speaks during a news conference at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani dashed hopes Friday, July 31, 2020 of an early start to negotiations with Taliban insurgents, announcing the final 400 Taliban prisoners whose release is a prerequisite to start talks, will remain jailed. The announcement frustrates U.S. efforts to find an end to Afghanistan's years of relentless war. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File)

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani dashed hopes Friday for a start to negotiations with Taliban insurgents, announcing the final 400 Taliban prisoners whose release is a prerequisite to start talks, will remain jailed. The announcement frustrates US efforts to find an end to Afghanistan´s years of relentless war.

Addressing the nation on the Muslim holy day of Eid al Adha, Ghani said the 400 Taliban are convicted of crimes he has no authority to forgive. Instead, he will call a loya jirga - or traditional grand council of elders - to decide whether they should go free. He said the council would meet "shortly."

Ghani's announcement was certain to delay the start of negotiations between the warring sides and frustrate Washington's efforts to bring an early end to hostilities, even as they scale down their presence in Afghanistan.

It also comes at the start of a three-day ceasefire announced by the Taliban for the Eid holidays.

The prisoner releases were part of a deal the United States signed in February with the Taliban aimed at ending Afghanistan's endless wars and sending US troops home after nearly 20 years in Afghanistan, ending America's longest war.

That deal, touted at the time as Afghanistan's best chance at peace in four decades, called for the Afghan government to free 5,000 Taliban held in jails across the country and the Taliban to free 1,000 government and military personnel. The releases were to be a sign of good will and a prerequisite to the start of negotiations between the warring sides.

On Thursday, the Taliban concluded the release of the 1,000 they were holding, according to Taliban's political spokesman Suhail Shaheen. He also said the insurgent group was ready to hold talks with Kabul's political leadership within a week if the remaining Taliban still in jails in Afghanistan were freed.

But Shaheen told The Associated Press the Taliban would not accept substitutes to the 5,000 Taliban on the list agreed upon during the one-and-a-half years of negotiations with Washington.

Ghani in his speech said his government would free 500 Taliban who are not on the list saying it was a gesture of good will.

In response to Ghani's announcement, Shaheen called his administration "an obstacle to peace."

Shaheen told The Associated Press the Taliban freed 1,005 government personnel, militia members, military personnel and police. The last of the prisoners was freed Thursday.

"We freed all of them as a good will gesture so that they may pass their Eid days with their families and also we announced the cease-fire in order to create a conducive atmosphere for the start of intra-Afghan negotiations," Shaheen said. "But on the other hand the head of the Kabul administration, instead of removing hurdles in the way of peace and intra-Afghan negotiations, is creating ... hurdles and obstacles."

The UN had expressed hopes for a start to negotiations within weeks, suggesting they may have begun in July, and called on both sides not to squander an opportunity at peace.

The US Embassy in Kabul on Thursday issued a statement at the end of Khalilzad's round of meetings with Afghan leaders in the capital repeating a call for an end to fighting and bloodshed and urged both sides to "seize this historic opportunity for peace.

A meeting of the loya jirga would require weeks to collect elders from throughout the country and it wasn't clear how they would be chosen or whether Ghani's political opponent and the current head of the High Council for National Reconciliation Abdulllah Abdullah supported the move.

Abdullah was tasked with overseeing the peace talks with the Taliban as part of a power sharing deal with Ghani earlier this year following disputed presidential election results.

There was no immediate comment from Abdullah to Ghani's refusal to release the remaining Taliban prisoners.



North Korea's Kim Fires New Sniper Rifle while Visiting Troops

This picture taken on April 4, 2025 and released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) via KNS on April 5, 2025 shows North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un (C) looking through a rifle scope as he visits a training base of the Korean People's Army's special operations forces to observe a comprehensive training session, at an undisclosed location in North Korea. (Photo by KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)
This picture taken on April 4, 2025 and released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) via KNS on April 5, 2025 shows North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un (C) looking through a rifle scope as he visits a training base of the Korean People's Army's special operations forces to observe a comprehensive training session, at an undisclosed location in North Korea. (Photo by KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)
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North Korea's Kim Fires New Sniper Rifle while Visiting Troops

This picture taken on April 4, 2025 and released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) via KNS on April 5, 2025 shows North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un (C) looking through a rifle scope as he visits a training base of the Korean People's Army's special operations forces to observe a comprehensive training session, at an undisclosed location in North Korea. (Photo by KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)
This picture taken on April 4, 2025 and released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) via KNS on April 5, 2025 shows North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un (C) looking through a rifle scope as he visits a training base of the Korean People's Army's special operations forces to observe a comprehensive training session, at an undisclosed location in North Korea. (Photo by KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has test-fired a newly developed sniper rifle, state media said Saturday, as he inspected special forces whose training he said bolstered "actual war capability for guaranteeing victory".

Such units are among the thousands of troops that South Korea's spy agency says Pyongyang has deployed to Russia to support Moscow's war against Ukraine.

During the visit to a special operations unit on Friday, Kim said the "actual war capability for guaranteeing victory in the war field is bolstered up through intensive training," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

He added that their training is "the most vivid expression of patriotism and loyalty to the country," according to the agency.

Images released by state media showed Kim peering through the scope of a sniper rifle that KCNA said was going to be "newly supplied to special operation units".

Other images showed him pointing to the bullseye of a target, crouching alongside heavily camouflaged soldiers, and smiling and waving to troops.

Kim supervised "automatic rifle firing drills and sniper rifle firing drills" and, after personally test-firing the weapon, expressed "great satisfaction over the performance and power of the sniper rifle developed in our own way", KCNA said.

Kim's visit to the special forces came on the same day that South Korea's Constitutional Court upheld president Yoon Suk Yeol's impeachment over his disastrous martial law declaration, booting him from office and triggering fresh elections.

Yoon had defended his December 3 attempt to subvert civilian rule as necessary to root out "anti-state forces" and what he claimed were threats from North Korea.

KCNA reported Yoon's dismissal for the first time on Saturday, citing foreign media.

South Korea's opposition leader Lee Jae-myung is seen as a frontrunner in the next election, experts say, and his party has taken a more conciliatory approach towards North Korea.

US President Donald Trump, who met Kim three times during his first administration, said this week that he is in "communication" with Kim and intends to "do something at some point", according to Seoul's Yonhap news agency.