The Taliban broke into prisons and freed inmates, but who are they?

Taliban now has territorial control over all of Afghanistan. In the days leading up to Taliban commanders seizing power at the Presidential Palace, the mujahideen stormed several prisons and freed thousands of inmates in the country. This has sounded alarm bells not only in the country but abroad as well. To know why, it is important to know who these prisoners are.

Nearly 30,000 prisoners are housed in the country’s prisons as of October 2018, according a report by the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR).

Afghan forces at Bagram Air Base, home to a prison housing at least 5,000 inmates, surrendered to the Taliban. The air base was home to American troops and the prison held several Taliban and Islamic state fighters. Hours before of Ashraf Ghani’s statement on Saturday, the Taliban seized two prisons near Kabul including Pul-e-Charkhi prison and released thousands of inmates.

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Dr Jonathan Schroden, a military operations analyst told DH that though it is hard to accurately put out a figure of the total number of prisoners released, the number could be pegged at 10,000 if not more.

TOLOnews reported that 180 of the 630 prisoners freed in Kunduz were Taliban fighters among whom 15 were high-profile Taliban inmates who had been sentenced to death by the Afghan government.

What has been a cause for concern is that some of the prisoners who were released are top-level Taliban, al-Qaeda and ISIS leaders.

When asked about what Taliban have to gain by releasing prisoners, Dr Jonathan Schroden, a military operations analyst said, “They gained more manpower. While not every freed prisoner would pick up a gun and join their ranks, at least some did and that gave the Taliban more men in each of these cities.”

It was widely speculated that Afghan forces surrendered easily and gave up control of prisons, however, Dr Schroden said, “The fights at the prisons were in some cases fiercer than the fights for the cities themselves. The Taliban often went for a city’s prison first & their victory there was a key element of convincing security forces of their inevitable conquest of the city.”

Though the effect of so many inmates being released is unknown, a rise in Taliban’s manpower is widely expected and so is an increase in criminality, but what lays ahead is hard to predict considering the volatile situation in the country.

It is important to note that a significant number of these fighters are very young and may not be aware of a time when the Taliban was in power, before the US invaded the country and so how they would behave is also an unknown.

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