The Biden administration is engaged in complex negotiations with the Taliban, discussing a prisoner exchange that would secure the release of multiple American citizens detained in Afghanistan in return for at least one high-profile Guantanamo Bay prisoner, according to reporting by The Wall Street Journal.
The proposed deal, under discussion since at least July, involves the potential release of Muhammad Rahim al Afghani, whom US officials allege was a senior al-Qaeda aide, in exchange for Americans George Glezmann, Ryan Corbett, and Mahmoud Habibi, who were seized in Afghanistan in 2022.
On November 14, US officials presented this initial offer to the Taliban. The Taliban responded with a counterproposal the same day, requesting Rahim and two additional prisoners in exchange for Glezmann and Corbett, while denying they have custody of Habibi.
Roger Carstens, the administration's leading hostage negotiator, recently traveled to Doha, Qatar, for discussions with Taliban representatives regarding the Americans' release.
Muhammad Rahim al Afghani has been held at Guantanamo Bay since 2008. The Defense Department has characterized him as a close associate of Osama bin Laden and one of his most trusted facilitators. Rahim has consistently denied these allegations, maintaining he worked as a linguist in Afghanistan.
"That's not a close facilitator," said James Connell, Rahim's lawyer. Connell said that the charges against Rahim are "largely exaggerated. In the 17 years since, no evidence has been forthcoming."
The release of Rahim, considered a high-profile prisoner by the US government, along with potentially other Afghan detainees, could face political opposition.
The families of the detained Americans have grown increasingly frustrated with the pace of progress. In a December 15 email to senior US officials, Aleksandra Glezmann, wife of George Glezmann, reported her husband's deepening despair about his situation. "Trips to Washington are just a waste of life because his government doesn't care anyway, and that he will likely rot in jail and never come home alive," she wrote in the email, which was sent to Sullivan and Carstens.
Anna Corbett, Ryan Corbett's wife, expressed similar frustrations. "I want to take seriously the president's pledge that returning wrongfully detained Americans is a top priority, but he is running out of time to show these are more than empty words for families like mine that are not famous or well connected," she said in a statement. "After all, I haven't even been able to get a meeting with him despite 16 trips to DC to fight for Ryan's release, so it's hard to continue to have faith that he will use his power to bring my husband home."
The State Department has officially designated Glezmann and Corbett as wrongfully detained. Glezmann, a Delta Air Lines mechanic, was captured while touring Afghanistan in December 2022. Corbett, a consultant, was taken by the Taliban in summer 2022 while traveling with a German colleague approximately 300 miles northwest of Kabul.
Habibi disappeared in 2022 following the US operation that killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul. The FBI believes Afghan military or security forces took him into custody. "My family is confident that Mahmoud is alive and remains in the joint custody of the Taliban and the Haqqani network," Ahmad Habibi, Mahmoud's brother, told The Wall Street Journal. "We have a lot of evidence. If the Taliban wants Rahim, releasing my brother is their best shot at getting him."
In 2022, the Biden administration successfully negotiated the release of American Mark Frerichs, a civil engineer held by the Taliban for more than two years, in exchange for Haji Bashir Noorzai, an Afghan serving a life sentence in US federal prison for drug trafficking. That same year, the Taliban also released two additional Americans, including filmmaker Ivor Shearer, without any prisoner exchange.
