2 ex-Guantanamo Bay inmates return to Afghanistan

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) - Two former Guantanamo Bay prison inmates returned to their home country, Afghanistan, from Oman on Monday, local media reported.

The two Afghan nationals, Mullah Abdul Zahir Saber and Abdul Kareem, who had been arrested in 2002, were released from the Guantanamo Bay detention center in 2017, and shifted to an unspecified locality in Oman, where they remained under house arrest, said Mufti Abdul Mateen, spokesman of Afghanistan's interim Interior Ministry.

A picture released by several local media outlets showed the two ex-inmates, donned in white shalwar-kameez (loose trouser and shirt) and sporting black turbans, coming out of an airplane at the Kabul airport.

US-led foreign forces invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 and quickly ousted the then Taliban regime, following 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people.

After fighting their longest war in recent history, the US forces pulled out of Afghanistan days before the Taliban re-captured Kabul in August 2021.​​​​​​​