Rahmatullah Nabil, the former head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), said that the government will release the 400 Taliban prisoners, but it just wants the people to take responsibility in the name of the Loya Jirga.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Nabil called this a ploy by the president to “relinquish” his authority and called the jirga a waste of public time.
Nabil wrote: “The people of Afghanistan already know that the government will release these 400 prisoners after this consultation and they will put the responsibility on the people of Afghanistan in the name of the Loya Jirga, and they will benefit from it… with just a loaf of bread and a few afghanis, and the privilege of releasing 400 people will be left to some politicized organizations. They will fight for the survival of their seats and positions, and that’s it!”
He also said that in the current economic conditions, holding a Loya Jirga will lead to nothing but additional expenses.
“Now that the government has presented the issue of releasing 400 prisoners over to a jirga, it will only incur costs in the poor country like Afghanistan. Holding such jirgas is only deceiving the people and playing with the blood of soldiers.”
Nabil writes, “Let us not forget that bringing real peace to Afghanistan with good intentions, transparent and inclusive governance, and creating an atmosphere of national trust can be achieved not through fictitious jirgas and the government, much of which is paid by the government’s salary.”
He said that if the government was really protecting the rights of the people, then it should have raised an alarm about the 400 prisoners, when they had received the list, why wait till now.
He also said that if the government had a real intention for peace and the destiny of the people of Afghanistan, instead of convening a consultative jirga, it should have launched a national referendum, even if the people called for the ouster of the current president.
The Loya Jirga is scheduled to be held on Aug. 7 and will decided the release of 400 Taliban prisoners.