Taliban Five

The Taliban Five were five Afghan detainees at Guantanamo Bay and former high-ranking members of the Taliban government of Afghanistan who, after being held since 2002, indefinitely without charges, were exchanged in 2014 for United States Army sergeant Bowe Bergdahl.

For several years there were rumors that the Obama Presidency's negotiations with the Taliban hinged over the release of these men. The Taliban wanted the men to be sent to Qatar. The United States was reported to be considering freeing them if the Taliban would release Bowe Bergdahl, a soldier the Taliban had been holding since 2009. The Taliban Five were released to custody in Doha, Qatar on June 1, 2014. Bergdahl, upon his release, was tried by general court-martial on charges of desertion, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to be dishonorably discharged.

The Taliban Five have been described as "the hardest of the hard-core" by John McCain and James Franklin Jeffrey. All five are deemed "high" risk to the United States and were recommended for "continued detention". This reverses a position McCain held only four months earlier. McCain said his stance has changed only because the previous proposal was to release five "hard-core" Taliban leaders as a "confidence-building measure." The current proposal would be an actual exchange of prisoners. "I would be inclined to support such a thing, depending on a lot of details," he said. The Wall Street Journal described the identity of the five men as an "open secret", since members of Congress had been briefed on the negotiations.

The Taliban Five were involved in peace talks to end the conflict in Afghanistan with the U.S. in March 2019.