ISLAMABAD (Dispatches) –The Taliban have claimed that over 50 Daesh terrorists “surrendered” in the restive eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan.
An official statement from the Taliban’s intelligence headquarters in the provincial capital, Jalalabad, said that 55 terrorists associated with the Daesh terrorist group had laid down their guns there.
It said the head of the intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security in Nangarhar, Dr. Bashir, granted “conditional pardon” through mediation by tribal elders to these former terrorists who had been carrying out destructive activities in the Kot, Spin Ghar, and Achin districts of the province.
“If anyone (among the terrorists) violates (the accord) there will be strict legal actions (against them),” the statement quoted the Taliban intelligence chief as saying. The statement further said that the surrendering militants regretted their past actions and vowed to live peacefully under the Islamic Emirate.
Last week, another batch of 65 terrorists surrendered in the same province that has been witnessing a spike in targeted assassinations and bomb blasts in connection with rifts between the Taliban and Daesh.
In another development, the Pakistani Taliban have demanded that the government of Pakistan release a number of prisoners as a condition for talks aimed at laying the ground for full ceasefire negotiations, multiple sources in the group said.
The Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan and separate from the Afghan Taliban, have had two rounds of preliminary talks, facilitated by the Afghan Taliban, a commander based in the Afghan province of Kunar said.
Sources close to the matter said Sirajuddin Haqqani, the head of the Haqqani Network and the current Afghan Taliban interior minister, was helping the talks.
The Pakistan Taliban combine a number of militant groups that have been fighting the government of Pakistan since 2007.