An American citizen, who was held by the Taliban in Afghanistan for two months, has been released, Washington’s former envoy to Kabul has said.
Faye Hall will “soon be heading home” after she was arrested by the Taliban in February, Zalmay Khalilzad, who served as the US special representative for Afghanistan from 2018-2021, wrote on X.
Ms Hall, who is now in the care of Qatari officials, was detained alongside a British couple in their seventies – Barbie and Peter Reynolds – and their interpreter.
The couple ran training programmes for women and girls, and stayed when the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan in 2021. Afghan officials have not made the reason for their arrest public.
In his announcement, Mr Khalilzad thanked Qatar, which acts as a mediator between the US and Afghanistan.
The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ms Hall is the fourth US citizen released by the Taliban since January after Qatar brokered an agreement with them. Just days earlier, they freed another American, George Glezmann, who had been held for two years.
At the time, the government said the airline mechanic was released on “humanitarian grounds,” and that the decision was a “goodwill gesture”.
These decisions also come after US officials were hosted in the Afghan capital Kabul.
Those were the highest-level direct talks between the two countries since President Trump’s inauguration, though the new American administration’s policy plans for the Taliban and Afghanistan remain unclear.
When he was last in power, Trump negotiated the end of the US war in Afghanistan by agreeing to a 14-month deadline to withdraw US troops and allied forces.
The agreement was criticised, as it left out the Western-backed and democratically-elected Afghan government, which was quickly toppled by Taliban forces during the US’s disastrous withdrawal in 2021.
Trump has blamed his predecessor, Joe Biden, for the chaotic exit, which included a bombing at Kabul airport. The attack killed at least 170 Afghan civilians and 13 US soldiers.
Barbie and Peter Reynolds remain in detention. The couple met in England, married in Kabul in 1970 and have run educational programmes in the region for years.
When the Taliban took back control of Afghanistan, the Reynolds were among the few westerners who decided to stay.
Their daughter, Sarah Entwistle, told the Sunday Times: “They said they could not leave when Afghans were in their hour of need.”
She said her parents were “meticulous about keeping by the rules even as they kept changing”.
Ms Hall was arrested while travelling with the couple to their home in central Bamyan province.
Ms Entwistle has said that her 79-year-old father is suffering severe medical issues while imprisoned, including a chest infection, eye infections and digestive issues. She has alleged that he has also been beaten since being detained.
“Our desperate appeal to the Taliban is that they release them to their home, where they have the medication he needs to survive,” she told the Sunday Times.
By BBC News
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