Tag: exchange
Hagel Stands Up For ‘Tough Call’ To Trade Taliban Prisoners For Bergdahl

Hagel Stands Up For ‘Tough Call’ To Trade Taliban Prisoners For Bergdahl

By David S. Cloud, Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Wednesday defended the swapping of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban prisoners, insisting that the exchange was the “last, best chance” to get him back and did not violate a long-standing U.S. policy against negotiating with terrorists.

Hagel, in the first testimony to Congress on the controversial swap, dismissed Republican complaints that Congress was not informed about the prisoner swap ahead of time, calling it an “extraordinary situation” that required secrecy until after Bergdahl was handed over in eastern Afghanistan last month.

His appearance before the House Armed Services Committee comes after a week of questioning by lawmakers of both parties about the deal reached by the Obama administration for Bergdahl.

He remains at a U.S. military hospital in Germany undergoing counseling and is facing an investigation into whether he deserted his Army unit before he was taken prisoner.

In sometimes sharp exchanges with Hagel, Republicans on the panel argued that because Bergdahl was believed to be held by a terrorist organization, the deal to free him breached U.S. practice not to negotiate with terrorists.

Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., called the prisoner swap “deeply troubling” and “unprecedented” — a criticism echoed by several Republican lawmakers on the panel.

“How is it the United States could have been in negotiations with the Haqqani network, a listed terrorist organization, and it not conflict with our policy that we do not negotiate with terrorists?” asked Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio.

Hagel insisted that the U.S. had engaged only in “indirect negotiations” with Qatar acting as intermediary, and even then only with Taliban officials, not with members of the Haqqani group, which has close ties to Taliban leaders. It has carried out some of the most deadly attacks in Afghanistan in recent years.

“We didn’t negotiate with terrorists, Congressman,” he told Turner.

Pentagon general counsel Stephen Preston, testifying with Hagel, conceded that the Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan during the 1990s before being ousted in the 2001 U.S. invasion, is “not a conventional nation state” like those that held U.S. prisoners of war in past conflicts.

The deal to get Bergdahl “falls within the tradition of prisoners exchanged by opposing forces in time of war,” Preston said, citing the case of Army helicopter pilot Michael Durant, who was captured by Somali militants in 1993 in a battle in Mogadishu in which 18 U.S. soldiers were killed.

Durant was returned in a “quiet arrangement” with Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid in which he was exchanged for Somalis captured by the U.S., Preston said.

But Turner challenged that account, citing news reports that quoted Aidid as saying Durant was released as a “goodwill gesture” and then-President Bill Clinton as denying there had been any deal.

Hagel conceded that the administration “could have done a better job” at keeping Congress informed about the negotiations to free Bergdahl, who had been held captive nearly five years after leaving his base in eastern Afghanistan without permission.

“We grew increasingly concerned that any delay, or any leaks, could derail the deal and further endanger Sgt. Bergdahl,” Hagel said. “We were told by the Qataris that a leak, any kind of leak, would end the negotiation for Bergdahl’s release.”

Members of both parties criticized the administration for not notifying Congress in advance of the prisoner transfer, with McKeon and others contending it violated a U.S. law requiring 30-day notification before any prisoner can be moved from Guantanamo.

Hagel insisted that the U.S. did not know until hours before Bergdahl was turned over that the Taliban intended to comply with the deal, making it impossible to comply with the 30-day requirement. In addition, Preston said, Department of Justice lawyers had assured them that Obama had the power to transfer the Taliban prisoners without notifying Congress ahead of time, citing his constitutional powers as commander in chief.

“We did not know until the moment Sgt. Bergdahl was handed over safely to U.S. Special Operations Forces that the Taliban would hold up their end of the deal,” Hagel said. “The president’s decision to move forward with the transfer of these detainees was a tough call. I supported it. I stand by it.”

Qatar has promised that the Taliban prisoners will be kept in that country for a year, but Hagel refused to go into further details about security assurances that the U.S. has received aimed at preventing them from threatening the U.S.

“If any of these detainees ever try to rejoin the fight, they would be doing so at their own peril. There’s always — always — some risk,” Hagel conceded.

Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/MCT

Republicans Criticize Prisoner Swap That Freed Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl

Republicans Criticize Prisoner Swap That Freed Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl

By David S. Cloud, Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Senior Republicans criticized President Barack Obama on Sunday for releasing five high-ranking Taliban prisoners to secure the return of an American prisoner of war, arguing that it breached longstanding U.S. policy against negotiating with terrorists.

Administration officials strongly defended the swap, saying Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s health and safety appeared in danger after five years in captivity. They said they acted to save the life of the only American held by insurgents after the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Bergdahl’s parents offered only praise and thanks for the release on Saturday of their 28-year-old son, with whom they had still not spoken.

“There is no hurry. You have your life ahead of you,” said Bergdahl’s mother, Jani, fighting back tears during a news conference at an Idaho Army National Guard facility in Boise, near the family’s hometown, Hailey.

“You are free. Freedom is yours,” she added. “We will see you soon. I love you, Bowe.”

Bergdahl’s father, Bob, called the lack of contact a necessary part of his son’s reintegration.

“Bowe has been gone for so long that it’s going to be very difficult to come back,” he said. The soldier’s father still wore the bushy beard he had grown to show solidarity with his son, who disappeared after completing guard duty at a U.S. base in eastern Afghanistan in 2009.

Bob Bergdahl compared his son’s plight to making a deep-sea dive — if he returned too quickly to the surface, “it could kill him.”

Sgt. Bergdahl was flown Sunday from Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. He is expected to be moved to a military hospital in San Antonio this week.

The debate in Washington immediately turned partisan. Republican critics argued that the deal would embolden insurgents to try to grab other U.S. soldiers or civilians to trade for more prisoners at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“What does this tell the terrorists? That if you capture a U.S. soldier, you can trade that soldier for five terrorists,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who is expected to run for president, said on ABC’s “This Week.” He called the prisoner swap “very disturbing.”

Visiting troops in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel thanked the special operations forces who retrieved Bergdahl on Saturday from a pre-arranged site in Khost province. He told reporters that the administration agreed to the prisoner exchange because Bergdahl’s “safety and health were both in jeopardy” and it was necessary to “save his life.”

In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Hagel said he does not believe “that what we did in getting our prisoner of war home would in any way encourage terrorists to take hostages.”

The need to move quickly when the opportunity arose last week prevented Obama from giving Congress the required 30-day notice before transferring prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, Hagel said.

The five were released to the custody of the government of Qatar, which mediated the exchange. They are barred from leaving the Persian Gulf emirate for one year. U.S. officials said they would be subject to monitoring and to other restrictions on their movements and activities.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who was a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, called the five Taliban prisoners “the hardest of the hard core” who were “possibly responsible for the deaths of thousands.”

Appearing on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” he added: “We need more information about the conditions of where they’re going to be and how. But it is disturbing that these individuals would have the ability to re-enter the fight.”

Susan Rice, Obama’s national security adviser, dismissed GOP criticism that the deal to get Bergdahl home would put other soldiers at risk of being taken hostage, and she disputed that it violated a U.S. practice not to negotiate with terrorists.

“This is a very special situation,” she said on CNN, saying that getting Bergdahl back was a “sacred obligation” that required reaching a deal with a “non-state actor.”

“In all likelihood, (the returned Taliban detainees) will not pose a national security risk,” she said.

In previous wars, governments have exchanged prisoners when the conflict is over. But in this case, Bergdahl is believed to have been held by the Haqqani network, a militant group closely linked to the Taliban.

The five released prisoners were all senior Taliban commanders, and were imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay in 2002 after the U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban government. Before the exchange Saturday, none was deemed eligible for release by the Pentagon.

Muhammad Fazl, 47, served as Taliban deputy defense minister during the U.S. invasion and commanded troops fighting the U.S. forces in northern Afghanistan, according to a 2008 Defense Department document on his case. He was wanted by the United Nations for “possible war crimes, including the murder of thousands of Shiites,” the document said. “If released, the detainee would likely rejoin the Taliban,” it added.

Khairullah Khairkhwa, according to another 2008 Defense Department document, served as the Taliban government’s interior minister and as governor of Herat province, and he was “directly associated” with Osama bin Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar, the fugitive Taliban leader. Khairkhwa also “was associated” with a military training camp run by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a notorious al-Qaida-linked leader later killed by U.S. forces in Iraq. In addition, he was “probably one of the major opium drug lords in western Afghanistan,” the document said.

Mullah Norullah Noori, according to a similar 2008 document, was the senior Taliban commander in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif during the 2001 U.S. invasion. He was wanted by the U.N. for possible war crimes, including the deaths of thousands of Shiite Muslims, the document said. He was “associated” with Mullah Omar and senior al-Qaida leaders, it said.

Abdul Haq Wasiq, according to a 2008 document on his case, served as deputy minister of intelligence during the Taliban rule and was involved in recruiting other militant groups to fight against the U.S. after the 2001 invasion. He used his office to support al-Qaida and “arranged for al-Qaida personnel to train Taliban intelligence staff,” it said.

Mohammed Nabi was a “senior Taliban official” with close ties to al-Qaida, the Haqqani network and other groups that fought the U.S. in Afghanistan, according to a 2008 Defense Department document. He was part of a militant cell in Khost that attacked U.S. troops and facilitated the smuggling of weapons and fighters, the document said.

AFP Photo

Nigeria Kidnap Families Want ‘Unconditional’ Release

Nigeria Kidnap Families Want ‘Unconditional’ Release

Abuja (AFP) – Relatives of more than 200 schoolgirls held hostage by Boko Haram on Thursday called for their unconditional release, after Nigeria’s government ruled out a prisoner swap with the extremists.

An on-the-run Boko Haram suspect wanted in connection with a bomb attack that killed 75 in Abuja was meanwhile arrested in Sudan, while the UN pledged to do all it could to help end the crisis.

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau indicated in a video this week that he could release the 223 girls now held for more than a month in exchange for militant fighters in custody in Nigerian jails.

But Britain’s Africa minister Mark Simmonds said after meeting President Goodluck Jonathan on Wednesday that the head of state was adamant there “will be no negotiation that involves a swap.”

Ayuba Chibok, whose niece is among the hostages, said the girls’ detention was taking its toll on parents and families in their remote town from where the teenagers were abducted on April 14.

“For me, I want these girls released without any negotiations. Even if Boko Haram wants to request something from the government, let them request something else,” he told AFP by telephone from Chibok.

“Let (Shekau) release these girls unconditionally,” he added.

The mass abduction — and Boko Haram claims that the girls would be sold as slaves — has led to global outrage and galvanized the international community to help Nigeria end the crisis.

U.S. drones and manned surveillance aircraft have been deployed, the Pentagon said, while Britain was sending a spy plane and a military team to Abuja to work alongside French and Israeli experts.

The United Nations special envoy for West Africa, Said Djinnit, met Jonathan and said a package of measures were in place to help the girls after their release, including psychological counselling.

“The U.N. is committed to do its utmost within its capacity to assist the authorities of Nigeria in their efforts towards the release of the schoolgirls,” he said in Abuja.

Nigeria’s capital was hit by its worst ever bombing on April 14, when a car bomb ripped through a crowded bus station in the Nyanya suburb. Boko Haram were blamed.

The country’s secret police the Department of State Services (DSS) said this week that five men had been arrested on suspicion of carrying out the attack but the two alleged masterminds were at large.

One of them, British-born Nigerian Aminu Sadiq Ogwuche, was held on Tuesday as he tried to get a visa from the Turkish embassy in central Khartoum, where he had been studying Arabic, a source close to the case told AFP.

The DSS said Ogwuche, an army deserter who served in an intelligence unit, had previously been arrested on suspicion of terror offences in November 2011 at Abuja international airport but bailed the following October.

In parliament, senators were quizzing security and military commanders before voting on a request by Jonathan for a six-month extension to a state of emergency in three northeast states.

Jonathan has called the security situation in the region “daunting” and said he was concerned by the mounting loss of life among civilians.

More than 2,000 have been killed this year alone, most of them ordinary people, in the five-year insurgency across Muslim-majority northern Nigeria that has seen churches, schools and entire villages attacked.

Members of the lower House of Representatives were also expected to vote, with a two-thirds majority from members of both chambers required for an extension to be approved.

The state of emergency was first imposed on Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states on May 14 last year and extended in November, as attacks continued, particularly in hard-to-reach rural areas.

Yobe’s governor has already rejected extending the special powers. Borno and Adamawa, which are also run by the main political opposition, are expected to follow suit.

Initial gains in forcing Boko Haram out of urban centers appeared to have been lost because of the continued strife, with questions raised about the military’s tactics and ability to curb the threat.

Analysts have said conventional means are ineffective against an enemy fighting a guerrilla war while more was needed to boost intelligence and even equip demoralized soldiers on the front line.

Disgruntled troops on Tuesday fired shots into the air when the local commander paid a visit to the state capital of Borno, Maiduguri to sympathize with them after a Boko Haram ambush killed some of their comrades.

Six soldiers, including one officer, were killed as they returned from patrol duties in Chibok, the defense ministry said, adding that the commander was not injured by the firing.

©afp.com / Tony Karumba

Jordan Envoy Freed By Libyan Militia After Handover Of Jailed Militant

Jordan Envoy Freed By Libyan Militia After Handover Of Jailed Militant

By Laura King and Amro Hassan, Los Angeles Times

CAIRO — Jordan’s ambassador to Libya, abducted by gunmen nearly a month ago in the Libyan capital, arrived safely home in Amman on Tuesday. But the case raised troubling questions about the Libyan government’s ability to resist the demands of armed groups that hold sway in the energy-rich North African nation.

The envoy, Fawaz Itan, said after landing at a Jordanian military airfield that he had been treated well by his captors and was eager to return to his post. Armed assailants had yanked him from his car in central Tripoli on April 15 — one of an escalating series of abductions and other attacks directed against diplomatic personnel and Libyan officials this year.

More than two years after the capture and killing of fallen strongman Moammar Gadhafi, chaos reigns in Libya. Rival militias act with impunity, with the weak central government unable to rein them in. Some of the groups have nominal ties to the Libyan government but are not answerable to it.

Envoys in Tripoli increasingly risk becoming pawns in militias’ demands for the freeing of jailed colleagues. Itan’s captors had demanded the release of Islamist militant Mohamed Dersi from a Jordanian prison, and Agence France Presse quoted a Jordanian official as saying Dersi had been handed over to Libyan authorities.

Jordan characterized Dersi’s release as part of a prisoner exchange between the two governments, rather than a trade made with the militia to win Itan’s freedom.

Dersi, who allegedly has links to al-Qaida, had been serving a seven-year sentence in Jordan for plotting a suicide attack at Amman’s international airport. The kingdom’s minister of political and parliamentary affairs, Khaled Kalaldeh, told AFP he would serve the remainder of his sentence in Libya.

But this marked the second time in recent months that militias were able to pressure foreign governments to hand over prisoners.

In January, five Egyptian diplomats in Tripoli were seized as hostages by a militia group known as the Libyan Revolutionary Operations Room, which demanded the release of its leader, Shaaban Hediya, who had been arrested in Egypt days earlier. The group subsequently announced that Hediya had been released by Egypt and freed the diplomats.

©afp.com / Abdullah Doma