The U.S. delegation led by Thomas West, center, special representative on Afghanistan, held bilateral talks with the Taliban following the international conference in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, July 26, 2022.
Islamabad —
The United States has promised to make every effort to secure the release of three Americans whom it says are being held “unjustly” by Taliban authorities in Afghanistan.
Ryan Corbett, Mahmood Habibi, and George Glezmann were taken captive in separate incidents in Kabul in 2022, roughly a year after the Taliban stormed back to power in the Afghan capital.
“My thoughts and prayers are with Ryan Corbett, Mahmood Habibi, and their families today,” Thomas West, the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan, said on X, formerly Twitter, marking the second anniversary of the capture of the two men.
“We will and we must continue every effort to bring them and George Glezmann home to their families,” he wrote Sunday.
Roger Carstens, the U.S. special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, in separate remarks posted on X, said that the three “have been held for far too long and their families have endured unimaginable pain.”
Corbett is a humanitarian worker who had lived with his family in Afghanistan for years. He was evacuated during the August 2021 Taliban takeover following the withdrawal of U.S.-led Western troops.
Corbett returned to Afghanistan in 2022 and was detained by the Taliban but has not been charged with any crimes, according to his family.
Glezmann was visiting Kabul as a tourist lawfully traveling in Afghanistan when he was seized by the Taliban’s intelligence services on December 5, 2022, “without just cause or formal charge,” according to the Foley Foundation, working to secure freedom for Americans held unjustly captive abroad.
Separately on Saturday, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI, released a statement seeking information into the disappearance of Habibi, saying he was taken from his vehicle near his home in the Afghan capital, along with his driver, on August 10, 2022.
The FBI stated that the Afghan-American businessman worked as a contractor for Asia Consultancy Group, a Kabul-based telecommunications company. “It is believed that Mr. Habibi was taken by Taliban military or security forces and has not been heard from since his disappearance,” the agency noted.
Habibi was detained by the Taliban reportedly on suspicion that his company was involved in a July 31 U.S. drone strike in Kabul that killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, the fugitive al-Qaida network chief. The FBI said that de facto Afghan authorities had also briefly detained 29 other employees of the Asia Consultancy Group.
The Taliban have officially not responded to the latest U.S. calls for releasing the three Americans.
While de facto Afghan authorities have publicly disclosed that Corbett and Glezmann are among “several foreign nationals” imprisoned in Afghanistan for allegedly violating local immigration and other laws, they refuse to acknowledge holding Habibi.
On Sunday, an Afghan television station quoted Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s chief spokesperson, claiming that they have imprisoned only two American citizens and are not holding Habibi.
He reiterated that Kabul would release the prisoners in exchange for Afghans in U.S. custody, the Ariana News network reported on its website.
“We don’t have anyone named Habibi in our prisons. But the investigation is ongoing to find out what happened in this regard,” Mujahid stated.
The Taliban announced last month for the first time that they had discussed a possible prisoner exchange in direct talks with U.S. officials on the sidelines of an international conference in Doha, Qatar, hosted by the United Nations.
“During our meetings, we talked about the two American citizens who are in prison in Afghanistan,” Mujahid told reporters after the meeting.
“But they must accept Afghanistan’s conditions. We also have prisoners in America, prisoners in Guantanamo. We should free our prisoners in exchange for them,” he said without elaborating.
Last week, the U.S. State Department spokesperson told reporters in Washington that U.S. officials have raised the detainees’ fate in every meeting with the Taliban.
Matthew Miller stated that Corbett and Glezmann “are wrongfully detained,” according to the U.S. legal determination. “That’s not a determination we have yet made with respect to Mahmood Habibi, which is not to say we’re not working to try and secure his release,” he explained.
“Oftentimes, we can’t make a wrongful detention determination because we don’t have access to certain types of information or because the situation is unclear. There can be other factors as well,” Miller explained.
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