December 15, 2001	Saturday	Ramazan 29, 1422

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)

ISLAMABAD, 14: More than 100 Pakistani prisoners released by the post-Taliban rulers in eastern Afghanistan arrived in Pakistan on Friday, reports from Peshawar said.

They were taken prisoner by the forces of Haji Abdul Qadeer in the eastern Nangarhar province for siding with the Taliban in the Afghan civil war.

“All 112 were arrested and will be thoroughly interrogated,” a Pakistani interior ministry official said.

The Pakistanis crossed at the Torkham border post in the Khyber Pass after being released in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad by the new post-Taliban authorities in Nangarhar province. They were among around 6,000 Pakistanis who went to Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban as the US-led coalition launched military operations to hunt down Osama bin Laden.

Nearly half of them managed to escape back after the swift collapse of the Taliban, but the remainder went missing believed killed or were caught and imprisoned by anti-Taliban forces in different parts of Afghanistan.—Agencies