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Released Taliban prisoners return home

Each freed prisoner received a small sum of money from the interim Afghan government. The International Committee of the Red Cross also gave funds to men who registered with the agency.

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- More than 300 former Taliban conscripts who were released from detention are on their way home Sunday to southern Afghanistan.

International Committee of the Red Cross officials said 220 of the men who were released Saturday night were registered with the agency and were given the equivalent of $10 to pay for their transportation in addition to funds from Afghanistan's interim government.

Another hundred or so were not registered with the ICRC, officials said, and did not receive money from the agency.

The interim Afghan government gave each released prisoner 500,000 Afghanis, or $15 -- about two weeks' salary for the average Afghan civil servant, The Associated Press reported.

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The ICRC will monitor the resettlement of the men registered with the agency, spokesman Michael Kleiner said.

"If the ex-detainees now are going home and are harassed, they can come back to us of course, and we will try to seek solutions with them together with the authorities," he said.

Abdul Ghafar, a 27-year-old man born in Herat, said the Taliban pressed him into military service, but he didn't kill anyone during his brief period with them. The Northern Alliance captured him near Konduz, then authorities in Kabul detained him, he said.

Ghafar adamantly denied being a supporter of Taliban practices.

"If we didn't join them, they would have put us behind bars," he said moments before boarding the bus.

Ghafar, who said he was surprised he was released, said he doesn't fear reprisals when he returns home.

"My neighbors will know that we were forced to join the Taliban," he said.