NYT reporting that paving the way for Afghan peace talks with the Taliban, Taliban freed two Westerners they had held for more than three years this am, in exchange for the release of three senior insurgent leaders. Yikes! #TuesdayThoughts nytimes.com/2019/11/19/wor…
Taliban today released an American, Kevin C. King, 63, & an Australian, Timothy J. Weeks, 50, teachers at the American U in Kabul who were abducted in 2016. The key figure being returned to the Taliban is Anas Haqqani, the younger brother of the Taliban’s military operations ldr.
"exchange was brokered, in part, by the American peace envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, who had earlier negotiated a tentative agreement with the Taliban that would have included terms of an American troop withdrawal. But those talks were abruptly aborted by President Trump in Sept."
