Two Americans detained in Afghanistan were released in a prisoner exchange with the Taliban in the final hours of former President Joe Biden’s time in office before President Donald Trump took over Monday.
One of the Americans was Ryan Corbett, 42. He was arrested in Afghanistan in August 2022. The U.S. State Department had classified him as “wrongfully detained.” His family confirmed his release Tuesday in a statement, saying that Corbett was “home after what has been the most challenging and uncertain 894 days of our lives.”
Taliban officials did not identify the second American freed, and there was no immediate public confirmation from that person’s family or U.S. officials. However, a former senior Biden administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the family requested privacy, said it was William McKenty, 69.
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Corbett had lived in Afghanistan with his family until the U.S.-backed government fell to the Taliban in 2021. He was abducted when he returned to that country a year later on a business trip connected to his micro-lending consultancy. Corbett’s case had received some public attention. His wife, Anna, spoke on the phone with Biden and she also visited Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida.
Less is known about McKenty’s case. Few details have emerged about his identity or what he was doing in Afghanistan when he was abducted. He has reportedly asked the U.S. government to help maintain his privacy.
The deal was struck for Khan Mohammad, a member of the Taliban serving two life sentences in a U.S. prison. The U.S. Justice Department said Mohammad was convicted in 2008 on “drug and narco-terrorism charges.”
The Taliban’s foreign ministry said the deal was the done as a result of “long and fruitful negotiations” and was completed shortly before Trump was sworn in Monday. Mohammad was arrested about halfway through the U.S.’s 20-year war in Afghanistan, which it invaded to destroy al-Qaida and bring Osama bin Laden to justice.
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At a rally in Washington on the eve of his inauguration, Trump pledged to reclaim U.S. military equipment left behind in Afghanistan when the Biden administration pulled U.S. forces out of Kabul.
Americans detained overseas
At least two other American captives are being held in Afghanistan.
One of them is George Glezmann, a former airline mechanic. The other one is Mahmood Habibi, a naturalized U.S. citizen, who was seized after a U.S. strike in Afghanistan in 2022 that killed al-Qaida’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahri.
In their statement, the Corbett family praised both the Biden and Trump administrations for helping with the exchange. The family also expressed regret that Glezmann and Habibi were not part of it. They also thanked Qatar, an energy-rich Middle Eastern nation that has helped broker hostage exchanges between the U.S. and the Taliban over the years.
A diplomat with knowledge of the exchange, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the details were not made public, said the negotiations lasted for two years. Once a deal was in place, Qatar provided logistical support to the Americans to ensure their safe exit from Afghanistan to the U.S. via Doha, the diplomat said.
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Qatar has played a leading role alongside the U.S. and Egypt in mediating a hostage and prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hamas. Three Israeli hostages were released from Gaza on Sunday, while 90 Palestinian prisoners were freed from Israeli prisons. More hostages and prisoners are set to be released on Jan. 25.
The State Department designates Americans held overseas as “wrongfully detained” if it views their detentions as politically motivated and believes the charges are fabricated. That was the case with Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter who was imprisoned in Russia for 16 months before his release last summer.
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The James W. Foley Legacy Foundation is named after an American journalist kidnapped and murdered by the Islamic State group in Syria in 2014. It reports that there are currently 36 publicly disclosed cases of Americans being held as hostages or wrongfully detained overseas. The majority are in the Middle East and Russia.
The former senior Biden administration official said the deal with the Taliban was reached “days” before Biden left office but the trade was delayed until the day after Trump’s inauguration because of logistical issues including poor weather.
The official said that during the Biden administration 80 Americans were released around the world from Burma to Venezuela.
The search in Syria for Austin Tice
One American who is not waiting for the U.S. government to help find and secure her son’s release is Debra Tice.
She has not seen or heard from her son Austin since shortly after he went missing in Syria in 2012 after celebrating his 31st birthday. He was in Syria reporting on that country’s civil war.
Five weeks after he vanished, a shaky, 43-second video emerged titled “Austin Tice is Alive.”
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In it, the former captain in the U.S. Marines who was using his summer break from law school at Georgetown University to cover Syria’s conflict is blindfolded and surrounded by armed men.
The video shows Tice being led away by his apparent captors on a rocky hillside. In broken Arabic he recites portions of a prayer before stopping, clearly in distress, and saying “Oh Jesus, Oh Jesus.”
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The collapse of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime late last year has renewed hopes − but brought few new clues − that one of the longest-held American hostages could soon be released, or failing that, his fate determined.
“I feel very strongly that Austin’s here, and I think he knows I’m here,” Debra Tice said of her son, now 42, in an interview with Reuters after arriving in Damascus on Saturday to step up the search for her son.
“I am hoping to get some answers.”
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