An American contractor held hostage in Afghanistan for more than two years by the Taliban has been released, his family said on Monday, as a Taliban drug lord jailed by the United States was also freed and returned to Kabul.
Mark Frerichs, a Navy veteran who had spent more than a decade in Afghanistan as a civilian contractor, was abducted in January 2020 and was believed to have been held since then by the Taliban-linked Haqqani network.
Negotiations for his release had centred on a deal that would also involve the release of Bashir Noorzai, a notorious drug lord and member of the Taliban who told reporters in Kabul on Monday that he had spent 17 years and six months in US captivity before being released.
The exchange is one of the most significant prisoner swaps to take place under the Biden administration, coming five months after a separate deal with Russia that resulted in the release of Marine veteran Trevor Reed.
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It took place despite concerns from his family and other advocates that the US military departure from Afghanistan, and the collapse of the government there, could make it harder to bring him home and could deflect attention away from his imprisonment.
US President Joe Biden, in the UK to attend the Queen’s funeral, called Mr Frerichs’s family on Monday morning to share the “good news” that his administration was able to secure his release, according to a senior administration official.
The official called the decision to grant Mr Noorzai clemency “difficult” but necessary to reunite a US citizen with his family.
President Biden later said in a statement: “Bringing the negotiations that led to Mark’s freedom to a successful resolution required difficult decisions, which I did not take lightly. He added that his administration “continues to prioritise the safe return of all Americans who are held hostage or wrongfully detained abroad in Myanmar, Haiti, Russia, Venezuela, and elsewhere.”
Frerichs’s release comes as US officials work to secure freedom for US basketball star Brittney Griner and former US Marine Paul Whelan from Russian custody. Biden met with their families on Friday.
A sister of Mr Frerichs, who is from Lombard, Illinois, thanked US government officials who helped secure her brother’s release.
“I am so happy to hear that my brother is safe and on his way home to us. Our family has prayed for this each day of the more than 31 months he has been a hostage. We never gave up hope that he would survive and come home safely to us,” said a statement from the sister, Charlene Cakora.
In Afghanistan, Mr Noorzai told reporters at a press conference that he had been released from an unspecified US prison and handed over earlier in the day to the Taliban in Kabul, in exchange for an American prisoner held in Afghanistan whom he did not identify.
Mr Frerichs’s family subsequently confirmed that it was him.
Mr Frerichs (60), had been working on civil engineering projects at the time of his January 3st 2020 abduction in Kabul.
He was last seen in a video posted last spring by The New Yorker in which he appeared in traditional Afghan clothing and pleaded for his release. The publication said it obtained the clip from an unidentified individual in Afghanistan.
Until Monday, US officials across two presidential administrations had tried unsuccessfully to get him home.
Even before their takeover of Afghanistan in August last year, the Taliban had demanded the US release Mr Noorzai in exchange for Mr Frerichs. But there had been no public sign of Washington proceeding with any sort of trade or exchange along those lines.
Eric Lebson, a former US government national security official who had been advising Mr Frerichs’s family, said in a statement that “everything about this case has been an uphill fight”.
He criticised the Trump administration for having given away “our leverage to get Mark home quickly by signing a peace accord with the Taliban without ever having asked them to return Mark first.
“Mark’s family then had to navigate two administrations, where many people viewed Mark’s safe return as an impediment to their plans for Afghanistan,” the statement said.
The collapse of the Western-backed Afghan government and takeover by the Taliban in August 2021, raised additional concern that any progress in negotiations could be undone or that Mr Frerichs could be forgotten.
But his name surfaced last month when US President Joe Biden, who had publicly called for Mr Frerichs’s release, was said by his advisers to have pressed officials to consider any risk posed to Mr Frerichs by the drone strike in Afghanistan that killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri.
The Taliban-appointed foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, also spoke at the Kabul press conference alongside Noorzai and welcomed the exchange, saying it 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,” Mr Muttaqi said at the presser.
“This act shows us that all problems can be solved through talks and I thank both sides’ teams who worked so hard for this to happen,” he added.
The Taliban also posted a brief video on Monday on social media showing Noorzai’s arrival at the Kabul airport where he was welcomed by top Taliban officials, including Mr Muttaqi.
At the press conference, Mr Noorzai expressed thankfulness at seeing his “mujahedeen brothers” — a reference to the Taliban — 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.”