Biden spoke with families of Americans detained in Afghanistan, says White House
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US President Joe Biden emphasised his commitment to bringing home Americans wrongfully held overseas.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON – US President Joe Biden spoke on Jan 12 with the families of three Americans detained in Afghanistan by its Taliban rulers since 2022 and emphasised his commitment to bringing home Americans wrongfully held overseas, the White House said.
Mr Biden’s administration has been negotiating with the Taliban since at least July 2024
Efforts to secure the release of the Americans continue, a second source familiar with the initiative said on Jan 12.
Mr Corbett and Mr Habibi were detained in separate incidents in August 2022, a year after the Taliban seized Kabul amid the chaotic US troop withdrawal
Mr Ahmad Habibi, Mr Mahmood Habibi’s brother – who was on the call on Jan12 – welcomed the discussion with Mr Biden.
“President Biden was very clear in telling us that he would not trade Rahim if the Taliban does not let my brother go,” he said. “He said he would not leave him behind. My family is very grateful that he is standing up for my brother.”
The Taliban, which denies holding Mr Habibi, had countered the US proposal with an offer to exchange Mr Glezmann and Mr Corbett for Rahim and two others, one of the sources told Reuters last week.
The White House noted that Mr Biden has brought home more than 75 Americans unjustly detained around the world, including from Myanmar, China, Gaza, Haiti, Iran, Russia, Rwanda, Venezuela and West Africa.
His administration also brought home all Americans detained in Afghanistan before the US military withdrawal, it said.
“President Biden and his team have worked around the clock, often in partnership with key allies, to negotiate for the release of Americans held hostage or unjustly detained abroad so that they can be reunited with their families and will continue to do so throughout the remainder of the term,” it added.
A Senate intelligence committee report on the agency’s so-called enhanced interrogation programme called Rahim an “Al-Qaeda facilitator” and said he was arrested in Pakistan in June 2007 and “rendered” to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) the following month.
He was kept in a secret CIA “black site”, where he was subjected to tough interrogation methods, including extensive sleep deprivation, and then sent to Guantanamo Bay in March 2008, the report said.
Mr Biden last week sent 11 Guantanamo detainees to Oman, reducing the prisoner population at the detention centre in Cuba by nearly half, as part of its effort to close the facility as the President prepares to leave office on Jan 20. REUTERS
