While Qatar and the U.S. continue to negotiate, the Gulf country has agreed to keep a travel ban on the ‘Taliban 5’ past Monday.
According to a senior State Department official, Qatar has agreed to keep current security restrictions, monitoring and a travel ban in place for the five Taliban members who were traded for Army Sgt. Bowe Berghdal in May 2014. The former detainees were sent to live in Doha for a year under the supervision of Qatari authorities as part of the swap arrangement. That year ends June 1.
For now, they will remain in Doha. However, Qatar has not yet formally agreed to allow them and their family members to stay. According to someone with knowledge of the swap, the five men are midlevel bureaucrats with no operational value to the Taliban.
“They are Afghan citizens and we have been engaged with the Qatari government. I’ve talked personally to senior Qatari officials about their monitoring of these individuals that have been in Qatar for the last year. And [we’re] looking at what are [the] arrangements that could be put in place and what is going to be the disposition of these individuals, whether they will be sent back to Afghanistan or able to stay in Doha, so this is continuing,” CIA Director John Brennan said of the Taliban men on CBS Sunday while discussing what is best for U.S. security.
(h/t CBS)
