U.S. officials have handed over formal control to a prison in Bagram, Afghanistan to Afghan officials. The prison holds thousands of Taliban and terror suspects. Afghanistan’s President, Hamid Karzai, called the transfer a victory for Afghan sovereignty. Click below to read more.
U.S. officials handed over formal control of Afghanistan’s only large-scale U.S.-run prison to Kabul on Monday, even as disagreements between the two countries over the thousands of Taliban and terror suspects held there marred the transfer.
The handover ceremony took place at the prison next to a sprawling U.S. airfield in Bagram, just north of Kabul. President Hamid Karzai has called the transfer a victory for Afghan sovereignty.
Shortly after the handover ceremony, a suicide bomber in the northern city of Kunduz killed 15 people and wounded another 25. The bombing came as a stark reminder that the insurgency is waging a ceaseless campaign against the Afghan government and the U.S.-led NATO military alliance, and that many of those held in the prison have been arrested for organizing such attacks.
Enayatullah Khaliq, a spokesman for the Kunduz provincial governor, said the blast took place in the early afternoon. He had no other details. Governor Mohammad Anwar said the bomber was on foot and blew himself up next to a group of police officers.
In Bagram, Afghan officials hailed the transfer of most of the facility and its prisoners.
“We are telling the Afghan president and the Afghan people that today is a proud day,” said Afghan Army Gen. Ghulam Farouk, who now heads the prison.
The Bagram prison, formally known as the Parwan Detention Facility, has been the focus of controversy in the past but never had the notoriety of the prisons at Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
The prison facility was built about three years ago to replace a holding facility formerly located in an old Soviet hangar inside the base.
Earlier this year, the prison gained unwanted attention when hundreds of Qurans and other religious materials were taken from its library and sent to a burn pit at the military base. The event triggered scores of deadly anti-American protests across Afghanistan; six U.S. soldiers were killed during the violent demonstrations.
The transfer is politically important for Karzai, a member of Afghanistan’s Pashtun community who has been trying to assert his authority and counter accusations by Taliban insurgents that he is an American puppet.
The prison’s successful transfer also is seen as a critical part of the U.S. handover of responsibilities for such institutions to the Afghan government by the end of 2014, when most foreign troops leave the country.
