By ERIC TUCKER and RAHIM FAIEZ
WASHINGTON (AP) — An American contractor held hostage in Afghanistan for greater than two years has been launched in alternate for a convicted Taliban drug lord jailed within the United States, the White House stated Monday, asserting a uncommon success in U.S.-Taliban talks because the militant group took energy a bit of greater than a yr in the past
Mark Frerichs, a Navy veteran who had spent greater than a decade in Afghanistan as a civilian contractor, was kidnapped in January 2020 and is believed to have been held since then by the Taliban-linked Haqqani community. He was traded for Bashir Noorzai, a Taliban affiliate convicted of heroin trafficking in 2008 who had spent 17 years behind bars earlier than his launch Monday.
The alternate is among the most important prisoner swaps to happen beneath the Biden administration, coming 5 months after a separate cope with Russia that resulted within the launch of Marine veteran Trevor Reed. Frerichs’ household and different advocates had feared that the U.S. navy departure from Afghanistan, and the rise of the Taliban to energy, would make it tougher to deliver him residence and would deflect consideration away from his imprisonment.
U.S. officers throughout two presidential administrations had tried unsuccessfully to deliver Frerichs residence. His case has acquired much less public consideration than these of different Americans held overseas, together with WNBA star Brittney Griner and company safety government Paul Whelan, who’re each held in Russia and whose relations met with Biden on Friday
Discussions gained new momentum in June when President Joe Biden granted Noorzai aid from his life sentence, setting the stage for what one administration official described as a “very narrow window of opportunity this month” to hold out the deal.
Biden stated in an announcement launched by the White House, “Bringing the negotiations that led to Mark’s freedom to a successful resolution required difficult decisions, which I did not take lightly.”
A sister of Frerichs, who’s from Lombard, Illinois, thanked U.S. authorities officers who helped safe her brother’s launch.
“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,” stated an announcement from the sister, Charlene Cakora.
At the time of his 2005 arrest, Noorzai would hardly have appeared an excellent recipient for presidential clemency. He’d been designated on a listing reserved for a few of the world’s most prolific drug traffickers, and was prosecuted in federal courtroom in New York on expenses that accused him of proudly owning opium fields in Kandahar province and counting on a community of distributors who offered the heroin.
When he was sentenced to life imprisonment, the then-top federal prosecutor in Manhattan stated Noorzai’s “worldwide narcotics network supported a Taliban regime that made Afghanistan a breeding ground for international terrorism.”
A senior administration official who briefed reporters on situation of anonymity beneath floor guidelines set by the administration stated that the U.S. authorities had now decided that Noorzai’s launch would “not materially change any risk to Americans or fundamentally alter the contours of the drug trade there.” Officials additionally took into consideration that Noorzai had spent 17 years in jail.
At a press convention Monday, 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.”
Frerichs, 60, had been engaged on civil engineering tasks on the time of his Jan. 31, 2020, abduction in Kabul. He was final seen in a video posted final spring by The New Yorker i n which he appeared in conventional Afghan clothes and pleaded for his launch. He was accompanied Monday by the administration’s particular presidential envoy for hostage affairs, however his final vacation spot was not instantly clear.
Even earlier than their takeover of Afghanistan in August final yr, the Taliban had demanded the U.S. launch Noorzai in alternate for Frerichs. But there had been no public signal of Washington continuing alongside these strains.
Eric Lebson, a former U.S. authorities nationwide safety official who had been advising Frerichs’ household, stated in an announcement that “everything about this case has been an uphill fight.” He criticized 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 assertion stated.
The collapse of the Western-backed Afghan authorities and takeover by the Taliban in August 2021, raised further concern that any progress in negotiations could possibly be undone or that Frerichs could possibly be forgotten. But his title surfaced final month when Biden, who had earlier known as for Frerichs’ launch, was stated by his advisers to have pressed officers to contemplate any threat posed to Frerichs by the drone strike in Afghanistan that killed al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahri.
The Taliban-appointed overseas minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, hailed the alternate Monday because the the beginning of a “new era” in U.S.-Taliban relations and the opening of a “new door for talks.”
U.S. officers have been extra circumspect. Though it doesn’t acknowledge the Taliban authorities, the U.S. does have pursuits at stake in Afghanistan and can proceed to interact with the Taliban in addressing the starvation and humanitarian disaster gripping the nation, administration officers stated Monday. But officers say they continue to be involved about whether or not the Taliban are dedicated to preventing terrorism and by the exclusion of women from colleges there.
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Faiez reported from Islamabad. Associated Press author Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.
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This story has corrected a model earlier within the day that cited Taliban claims that Noorzai was held at Guantanamo Bay; the declare was disproved by U.S. officers.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”