A US navy veteran detained in Afghanistan for more than two years was yesterday released by the Taliban in exchange for a Taliban detainee held for years at Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan’s foreign minister said.
Mark Frerichs was working as a civil engineer on construction projects in Afghanistan when he was “taken hostage” on Jan. 31, 2020, the US has previously said.
He was last seen in a video distributed earlier this year, pleading for his release so that he can be reunited with his family, a recording posted by the New Yorker magazine at the time. There was no independent confirmation or word from Washington on Frerichs’ release.
Photo: AP
“After long negotiations, US citizen Mark Frerichs was handed over to an American delegation and that delegation handed over [Bashar Noorzai] to us today at Kabul airport,” Afghan Minister of Foreign Affairs Amir Khan Muttaqi told a news conference in Kabul.
Noorzai, a notorious drug lord and member of the Taliban, told reporters that he spent 17 years and six months in the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay, and that he was the last Taliban prisoner there.
Muttaqi said the exchanged marked the start of a “new era” in US-Taliban relations.
“This can be a new chapter between Afghanistan and the United States, this can open a new door for talks between both countries,” Muttaqi said.
“This act shows us that all problems can be solved through talks, and I thank both side’s teams who worked so hard for this to happen,” Muttaqi added.
The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan a little over a year ago as the US and their NATO allies withdrew from the country after 20 years of military intervention. No country has yet recognized the new government, with Washington repeatedly telling the Taliban that they would have to “earn” legitimacy, while the US Department of State had previously said the veteran’s release was one its “core, non-negotiable priorities.”
Frerichs, of Lombard, Illinois, was believed to be held by the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network, and US officials across two presidential administrations had tried unsuccessfully to get him home.
While Noorzai held no official position, he had “provided strong support including weapons” for the Taliban in the 1990s, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.
His return to Kabul was celebrated with a hero’s fanfare by the government of the new Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), the name the Taliban have given the nation since seizing power in August last year.
Photographs showed him being greeted by masked Taliban fighters bearing floral garlands.
“If the IEA had not shown its strong determination, I would not have been here today,” Noorzai told reporters at the event in Kabul.
“I pray for more success of the Taliban,” he added. “I hope this exchange can lead to peace between Afghanistan and America, because an American was released and I am also free now.”
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