Pakistan releases two more Afghan Taliban leaders to facilitate peace

AVA- Two Taliban officials confirmed to media the release of Abdul Samad Sani, a Taliban fundraiser, and Salahuddin, a military commander, weeks after Pakistan set free former Taliban deputy chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.
Sani was among a group of six Taliban and Haqqani Network leaders who the US had designated as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs) in January this year for ‘providing support to terrorists or acts of terrorism.’
The US Department of the Treasury had stated that Sani had served as the Taliban’s deputy finance commissioner, and served as the governor for the Afghan central bank during the Taliban regime. The department had issued a long list of charges against him that included collecting funding to purchase supplies and ammunition for Taliban commanders and fighters engaged in combat in Afghanistan.
Pakistan had arrested Sani in Balochistan in October 2016 along with Suleman Agha, the Taliban governor for Daykundi province.
Foreign Office Spokesman Dr Faisal said this month that Pakistan freed Baradar at the US request in order to ‘move forward on the shared objective of pursuing a political settlement in Afghanistan’. “The decision was taken following the visit of US Special Envoy on Afghan Reconciliation Ambassador Khalilzad to the region and his meetings with Taliban representatives in Doha,” Faisal had said during a weekly press briefing on November 8.