Afghanistan announces release of detained US linguist Dennis Coyle

KABUL – Afghanistan’s Taliban government announced on March 24 the release of an American who had been detained for more than a year after a letter from his family requesting his freedom.

The Foreign Ministry said the family of linguist and researcher Dennis Coyle wrote to the supreme leader of Afghanistan, asking that he be released and pardoned for Eid.

“The Supreme Court of the Islamic Emirate deemed his period of detention sufficient and decided on his release,” a statement read.

The announcement came after a meeting of Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, US former special envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, the United Arab Emirates’ Ambassador to Kabul Saif Mohammed Al-Ketbi, and a member of Mr Coyle’s family.

The UAE facilitated the release, the ministry said, adding that the decision was made on humanitarian grounds and as a gesture of “goodwill”.

Mr Coyle, 64, appeared relieved at a short news conference at Kabul airport alongside Mr Khalilzad.

Mr Khalilzad told reporters that the release was a “very positive development and a good decision… by the authorities”.

The family of the last Afghan held at the US high-security prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, meanwhile, renewed their call for his release.

Mr Ibrahim Rahim, 29, said he sent a letter via Mr Khalilzad to US President Donald Trump asking for his father, Mr Muhammad Rahim, to be freed on medical grounds.

Mr Muhammad Rahim arrived at Guantanamo in March 2008 and was accused by the Central Intelligence Agency of being a close associate of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

“We have written in the letter that we released your detainee here, so you should release our detainee there as well,” his son said.

The family last called for his release in November 2023.

‘Legally working’

Mr Coyle, from Colorado, was arrested in January 2025, according to the Foley Foundation, which advocates for the release of Americans taken hostage or arbitrarily detained abroad.

The Foreign Ministry said on March 23 he was held “due to violations of Afghanistan’s applicable laws”, without elaborating.

But a website set up by his family, freedenniscoyle.com, said he had been “legally working to support Afghan communities as an academic researcher” when he was detained.

They said he had been held in “near-solitary conditions, requiring permission even to use the bathroom, and without access to adequate medical care”.

Mr Coyle first travelled to Afghanistan in the early 2000s “to survey Afghanistan’s rich linguistic diversity and help Afghan communities develop resources in their own languages”, they added.

“Throughout his years of service, Dennis maintained a home in Kabul and built deep, meaningful relationships with the Afghan people,” the website read. “His love for the Afghan people isn’t just professional; it’s personal and deeply felt.”

Earlier in March, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States formally placed Afghanistan on its list of countries engaged in “wrongful detentions”.

The Afghan authorities called that “regrettable” and pointed to talks between the two sides and previous releases with mediators from Qatar.

In 2025, five American citizens were released in what the Taliban authorities said was a “goodwill gesture”.

Two Afghan former prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay until 2017 were welcomed home in February 2025, more than 20 years after they were first arrested. AFP