Taliban Demand Release Of Convicted Afghan Drug Lord

CIC's Barnett Rubin was interviewed in this Gandhara article about the demands to release Hajji Bashar Noorzai, a Taliban leader who is incarcerated in a U.S. prison.

"'He is politically important to the Nurzais in Loya Kandahar,' Rubin said of Noorzai’s status as an important tribal figure among the Nurzai, a large Pashtun tribe in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar and adjoining regions collective referred to as Greater Kandahar by Afghans. 'That is a very important constituency for the Taliban,' he added."

Read the full article at Gandhara here.