WASHINGTON - Noorullah Noori, one of the five Taliban detainees released on Saturday in the controversial exchange for an American soldier, has vowed to return to Afghanistan and fight Americans, according to NBC News.
Noori was one of five high-level Guantanamo detainees who were released to Qatar, the Persian Gulf country where they’ll live for a year under terms of the agreement reached between the US and the Taliban. The released Taliban commanders can’t exit Qatar for a year, and will have “restrictions on their movement and activities.” But they’ll be free to go where they would like in Qatar, although they will be under the control of the Qatari government. “After arriving in Qatar, Noorullah Noori kept insisting he would go to Afghanistan and fight American forces there,” a Taliban commander told NBC News on Friday.
One of Noori’s relatives said the freed Taliban commander decided he will go to Afghanistan after his year in Qatar is up. He made the decision after learning that the US assured that no other country will arrest him and the four other detainees for a year as long as they lived in peace. The relative said Noori and the other detainees — Mohammad Fazl, Mohammed Nabi, Khairullah Khairkhwa and Abdul Haq — were in bad health and were being treated in a Qatari hospital. He said their spirits were lifted after a statement from Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar praised their release.
UNSC CONDEMNS AFGHAN ASSASSINATION BID
AFP adds: The UN Security Council condemned an attempt to assassinate Afghan presidential frontrunner Abdullah Abdullah on Friday, calling for an orderly transition to a new government. Abdullah escaped an assassination attempt when two blasts hit his campaign motorcade in Kabul, killing at least six people just ahead of next week’s hotly contested runoff. “The members of the Security Council underlined their support for Afghanistan’s democratic processes, and looked forward to the second round of the presidential election and the continued orderly transition to a new administration,” they said in a statement.
They condemned terrorist attacks against civilians and “attempts to disrupt elections by targeting election personnel, candidates or infrastructure.”
“No terrorist act can reverse the path towards Afghan-led peace, democracy and stability in Afghanistan, which is supported by the people and the government of Afghanistan and by the international community,” the statement added.
The council members also expressed their sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims, and to the people and government. It was the second attack targeting Abdullah during Afghanistan’s election season, which has seen an uptick in violence with the Taliban threatening to disrupt the polls.