Pakistan releases highest-ranking Afghan Taliban prisoner

Pakistan officials said they have released Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, their highest-ranking Afghan Taliban prisoner, in an effort to jumpstart Afghanistan’s struggling peace process.

A Pakistan intelligence official and a security official said Baradar -- the former deputy commander of the Taliban -- was freed Saturday. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

The U.S. and Afghanistan have long pressed Islamabad to free Baradar, a figure they believe could help persuade moderate Taliban leaders to come to the negotiating table as U.S.-led troops prepare to leave Afghanistan at the end of next year.

However, some Afghan government officials have expressed worries that Taliban prisoners will return to the battlefield once released from jail.

Pakistan sources said Baradar would probably be sent to Saudi Arabia or Turkey as part of that process, but Pakistan government officials would not confirm or deny that course of action.

Sartaj Aziz, a government adviser, told the Reuters news agency in Islamabad this month that Baradar would not be handed over to Afghanistan directly, as some in Kabul had hoped, and would instead be released into Pakistan.

He said it was important to make sure that released Taliban prisoners had a chance to establish contact with their leadership on the ground to persuade them to be part of peace talks -- an idea to which he said Afghan President Hamid Karzai had agreed.

"Obviously Karzai wanted him to go to Afghanistan, but we feel that if they are to play a positive role in the reconciliation process then they must do it according to what their own Shura [Council], their own leadership, wants them to do," Aziz said.

However, a mid-level Afghan Taliban official told the AFP news agency that Baradar's release would not have any effect on events in Afghanistan.

"He will be just a simple guy with no position in the Taliban network," the official said.

Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said that Baradar “is seen as a crucial bridge to try to convince [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar to come to the negotiating table.

“The biggest problem is that the Afghan Taliban have refused to talk to the Karzai government, calling it a puppet regime installed by the U.S., and they have said they want to talk to the U.S. directly. Baradar is the man who may act as a conduit," Hyder said.

Even before his detention, Baradar was known as a pragmatic and level-headed operator who had once reached out to Kabul to seek a peace settlement, according to Afghan officials.

Pakistan arrested Baradar under murky circumstances in a joint operation with the CIA in 2010 in the southern city of Karachi.

Al Jazeera and wire services