Kabul repatriates Pakistani POWs

At least 1,000 Pakistanis are imprisoned in Afghanistan

Afghanistan's interim administration has freed the first of hundreds of Pakistanis captured while fighting alongside al-Qaeda and Taleban forces.

People told us there was a jihad there, so we went

Sultan Mahmood
Returning prisoner

The 30 prisoners were flown on Thursday by Pakistan military transport from the Afghan capital Kabul to the northern Pakistani city of Peshawar.

Most of those released were elderly men.

The Pakistan government says their release followed a request made by President Pervez Musharraf during his visit to Kabul last month.

Aid agencies estimate that more than 1,000 Pakistanis who went to Afghanistan to fight US-led forces are still languishing in Afghan jails.

War wounded

According to Afghan officials, those released did not appear to have any links with Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda movement.

Most of the prisoners were elderly or wounded

"They are old men who were fighting with the Taleban," Shazada Masood, adviser to the Afghan minister of tribal affairs, told the Associated Press news agency.

"They are not convicted of any exact crime. They were simply deceived by the Taleban," he was quoted as saying.

Mr Masood said the remaining Pakistani prisoners would be released "step by step", except those found to have links with al-Qaeda, who would be charged.

The Pakistani government released no details of those released, but a large number of relatives of prisoners gathered at Peshawar airport, hoping to meet a loved one.

Aside from the elderly, some of those released were fighters who had been injured by American bombing.

Jihad

Of the 30 men, three were from the eastern Punjab province and the remainder the Swat and Dir areas of North West Frontier Province.

Most had gone to fight what they thought was a holy war

"People told us there was a jihad (holy war) there, so we went," prisoner Sultan Mahmood, 65, told the AP shortly before boarding the plane in Kabul.

An unknown number of Pakistanis, mostly hardline Islamists and Pashtun tribesmen, were killed after the collapse of Taleban rule and subsequent US-led onslaught.

Apart from the prisoners inside Afghanistan, some 300 detainees, who are all suspected of links to either al-Qaeda or the Taleban, are still incarcerated in a detention camp at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.