Taliban Five
2002–2014 Afghan prisoners of the US in Guantanamo Bay / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Taliban Five were five Afghan detainees at Guantanamo Bay and former high-ranking members of the Taliban government of Afghanistan who, after being held since 2002, indefinitely without charges, were exchanged in 2014 for United States Army sergeant Bowe Bergdahl.[1][2]
For several years there were rumors that the Obama Presidency's negotiations with the Taliban hinged over the release of these men.[3][4][5][6] The Taliban wanted the men to be sent to Qatar. The United States was reported to be considering freeing them if the Taliban would release Bowe Bergdahl, a soldier the Taliban had been holding since 2009.[7] The Taliban Five were released to custody in Doha, Qatar on June 1, 2014. Bergdahl, upon his release, was tried by general court-martial on charges of desertion, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to be dishonorably discharged.
The Taliban Five have been described as "the hardest of the hard-core" by John McCain and James Franklin Jeffrey. All five are deemed "high" risk to the United States and were recommended for "continued detention".[8] This reverses a position McCain held only four months earlier. McCain said his stance has changed only because the previous proposal was to release five "hard-core" Taliban leaders as a "confidence-building measure." The current proposal would be an actual exchange of prisoners. "I would be inclined to support such a thing, depending on a lot of details," he said.[9] The Wall Street Journal described the identity of the five men as an "open secret", since members of Congress had been briefed on the negotiations.[1]
The Taliban Five were involved in peace talks to end the conflict in Afghanistan with the U.S. in March 2019.[10]