Within the last hours of his time period, President Joe Biden negotiated a prisoner change with the Taliban that launched U.S. residents Ryan Corbett and William Wallace McKenty from Taliban custody.
Not included within the deal, nevertheless, had been U.S. residents George Glezmann and Mahmood Habibi.
On Saturday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on X that he was “simply listening to” of the detentions of further People by the Taliban.
“If that is true, we should instantly place a VERY BIG bounty on their high leaders, possibly even greater than the one we had on Bin Laden,” Rubio wrote.
2 AMERICANS RELEASED IN EXCHANGE FOR TALIBAN PRISONER
Dennis Fitzpatrick, who’s coordinating efforts exterior the U.S. authorities for Glezmann’s launch, claimed Glezmann was “by no means a severe precedence for the Biden White Home.”
“President Biden and [former National Security Advisor] Jake Sullivan determined to go away George Glezmann in Kabul for no good purpose,” Fitzpatrick instructed Fox Information Digital. “We’re assured that President Trump’s clear-eyed management will safe George’s launch to his household.”
Two U.S. residents, George Glezmann, left, and Mahmood Habibi, weren’t included within the latest Biden administration deal that freed two different People from the Taliban. (James Foley Basis/Getty Pictures)
Fitzpatrick added that 66-year-old Glezmann is “a very harmless man” who was “a hard-working, blue-collar airline mechanic earlier than he was wrongfully detained. He doesn’t deserve for use as a pawn.”
Glezmann has been in detention since Dec. 5, 2022, when he was touring to Afghanistan to “discover the cultural panorama and wealthy historical past of the nation” in accordance with a Senate decision from July 2024 calling for his fast launch.
The decision states that Glezmann’s psychological and bodily situation had been deteriorating on account of his detention in a nine-foot sq. underground cell. He has solely been allowed restricted calls to household and has skilled “facial tumors, hypertension, extreme malnutrition, and different medical situations” on account of his detention.
Former President Joe Biden on the White Home (Anna Moneymaker)
Whereas the Taliban admit to holding Glezmann in custody, they insist they don’t maintain Mahmood Habibi.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks after being sworn in by Vice President JD Vance within the Vice Presidential Ceremonial Workplace within the Eisenhower Govt Workplace Constructing on the White Home campus Tuesday, in Washington, D.C. (AP Picture/Evan Vucci)
Habibi’s brother Ahmad instructed Fox Information Digital the household “know[s] that my brother remains to be in Taliban custody. I am unable to share an excessive amount of about that as a result of we do not wish to put him or others in danger. However anybody accepting the Taliban’s hole options that they don’t have him is falling for his or her lies.
“We have now a number of witnesses to his arrest by the [General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI)]. We have now a number of witnesses who had been held with him at GDI headquarters. The Taliban has all the time claimed they do not have him and do not know who he’s. How do they clarify the plain contradictions to this?”
Ahmad additionally claimed the household “know[s] that the U.S. authorities has technical proof that Mahmood was in GDI custody lengthy after his arrest.”
He alleges the Biden Nationwide Safety Council “micromanaged the State Division’s effort to safe my brother’s launch” and “blocked [the State Department] from utilizing the information of their discussions with the Taliban, despite the fact that we instructed them that it will have straight confronted the Taliban’s claims that they by no means heard of my brother.”
Neither the State Division nor the Nationwide Safety Council responded to Fox Information Digital’s requests for affirmation of Ahmad’s claims.
Fox Information Digital additionally reached out to Taliban spokespersons Zabihullah Mujahid and Suhail Shaheen about Habibi’s detention and requested Mujahid what occurred to Habibi after he was arrested by the GDI. Mujahid didn’t reply. Shaheen directed Fox Information Digital to achieve out to the GDI and claimed no information of the scenario.
The Taliban have long sought the release of Guantanamo Bay detainee and al Qaeda facilitator Muhammad Rahim in change for the People they admitted had been of their prisons. Ahmad Habibi instructed CBS Information President Biden assured him in a Jan. 12 telephone name that the U.S. wouldn’t launch Rahim until the Taliban launched Habibi.
Taliban fighters in Kabul, Afghanistan (AP Picture/Ebrahim Noroozi)
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Former Principal Deputy Particular Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Hugh Dugan instructed Fox Information Digital the Trump administration may pursue a number of “strains of effort” to secure the release of Glezmann and Habibi.
Dugan mentioned this might contain “outright rescue by the army” at one degree or continued “delicate diplomacy within the background.”
Dugan mentioned he acknowledged that “to say we’re doing the whole lot we are able to … just isn’t satisfying to a member of the family, frankly, or anyone, and so they wish to hear that you simply’re persevering with to establish what may need eluded us all alongside, or that there is a crack within the horizon that is opening.
“And we have to notice that that is likely to be one other step in our path to restoration and a line of effort needs to be amended to accommodate new realities at any given second.”
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