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video posted to a social media website on Monday (June 2) purports to show the arrival of five Taliban inmates from the U.S. high security prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Reuters could not independently verify the content of this video which has been obtained from a social media website.
The five prisoners were flown to Qatar on Sunday (June 1) as part of a secret agreement to release Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who left Afghanistan for Germany on the same day.
The only known U.S. prisoner of war in Afghanistan, Bergdahl had been held captive for five years.
A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, identified the five men as: Mohammed Fazl, Mullah Norullah Noori, Mohammed Nabi, Khairullah Khairkhwa and Abdul Haq Wasiq.
The prisoner swap has stoked widespread anger in Afghanistan, where many view it as a sign of a U.S. desire to disengage from the country as quickly as possible.
Washington has mapped out a plan to fully withdraw all of its troops by the end of 2016.
Under the terms of the deal, cut by Qatari intermediaries, the five Taliban detainees were released from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they had been held since it opened in 2002, and flown to Qatar where they must stay for a year.
Senior officials at the Afghan intelligence agency say they believed the men would return to the battlefield and bolster the insurgency just as most foreign combat troops prepare to exit by the end of this year.
All five were classed as "high-risk" and "likely to pose a threat" by the Pentagon and held senior positions in the Taliban regime before it was toppled by a U.S.-led coalition in 2001.
At least two of them are suspected of committing war-crimes, including the murder of thousands of Afghan Shi'ites, according to leaked U.S. military cables.
The swap has similarly drawn protest from U.S. Republican politicians who have called it negotiating with terrorists and warned the freed men will likely return to battle.
U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said he hoped the exchange might lead to breakthroughs in reconciliation with the militants and rejected accusations from Republicans that it resulted from negotiations with terrorists, saying the swap had been worked out by the government of Qatar.
REUTERS