The US military has handed over another group of suspected Taliban fighters to Afghan custody under a programme to transfer all Afghan prisoners from US detention.
The 28 prisoners, captured since US-led forces removed the Taliban from power in 2001, join a previously transferred batch of Taliban in a refurbished block of Pul-i-Charkhi prison on the eastern edge of Kabul.
Taliban prisoners have staged at least two revolts in Pul-i-Charkhi and several have managed to escape. Last month, an Afghan soldier stationed at the prison shot dead two US soldiers in an incident that has not been fully explained.
The 28 prisoners were handed over north of Kabul yesterday at Bagram air base, a hub for US-led forces in Afghanistan.
The second transfer of its kind, it followed repeated requests by the Afghan government. The ministry gave no figure for the total number of Afghan prisoners held by the US military in Afghanistan and at the controversial Guantanamo Bay jail in Cuba.