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American Mark Frerichs, who was held captive in Afghanistan for more than two years, has been released in a prisoner swap, a senior Biden administration official confirmed Monday.
“Bringing Mark home has always been a priority for President Biden and his national security team,” the official said.
As part of the deal, key Taliban member Haji Bashir al-Nurzai received clemency after serving 17 years in prison in the United States on drug-trafficking charges, the official said.
Frerichs, a Navy veteran from Illinois, was kidnapped in late January 2020 while working on a construction contract in Afghanistan. He is believed to be controlled by the Haqqani Network, a faction of the Taliban. He disappeared for less than a month before the United States signed a peace deal with the Taliban.
Freirichs was able to get on the plane by himself and appeared to be in good physical and mental condition, a person familiar with the matter said. He is currently in Doha, Qatar.
Frerichs’ family praised Biden for securing his release, and his sister Charlene Cakora said in a statement: “There were people who opposed the deal to bring Mark home, but President Biden did the right thing. He saved an innocent man. the lives of American veterans.”
“I am so happy to hear that my brother is safe and on his way home. Our family has prayed for this every day during the more than 31 months he has been held hostage,” Kakola said. “We never gave up hope that he would survive and go home safely.”
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken welcomed Fririchs’ release and pledged to work to release other Americans “arbitrarily and unjustly” detained abroad.
“Mark will be reunited with his family soon,” Blinken said at the UN’s free speech roundtable in New York. “The president had a chance to talk to them a few hours ago.”
Blinken said the U.S. will release other Americans “arbitrarily and unjustly detained” abroad “with the same resolve and focus” as it did with Frisch.
Blinken added: “I want the families of Americans who are arbitrarily detained or held hostage anywhere in the world to know that our commitment to bringing their loved ones home is strong, and we will continue to focus on it relentlessly. ”
A Taliban spokesman said the exchange was obtained through constructive “dialogue” with the United States.
“Through dialogue, understanding and interaction, Haji Bashar’s freedom and the release of an American citizen demonstrate that good interaction and goodwill are the most effective ways to resolve a case,” said Zabihullah Mu, spokesman for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Jahid wrote on Twitter. “It is impossible to make progress in relations with the Afghans through force and pressure, but on the contrary, understanding can do anything.”
Earlier this year, The New Yorker released a video of Frerichs pleading for release — the first time the Illinois native has been seen in years.
“I have been patiently awaiting my release,” Freirichs said in the brief video, which he said will be recorded on November 28, 2021.
Since her brother was kidnapped, Kakora has called for the U.S. government to do more to secure his release, escalating those calls ahead of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
Earlier this year, the Biden administration secured the release of Afghan-American Navy reservist Safi Rauf and his brother Anes Khalil, a U.S. green card holder who has been detained by the Taliban since December .
A senior administration official said Monday that the Biden administration had been negotiating with the Taliban for months to secure Frisis’s freedom, and the president decided in June to leniency Noorzai if it would lead to the release of the captured American.
In a call with reporters, the official said it was clear that Noorzai’s release was “key to securing the freedom Mark deserves” but the decision to leniency for Afghan drug traffickers was a “difficult” one.
The government sees no reciprocity between Noorzai and Frerichs, who were sentenced to 17 years in prison in the United States. The official said Noorzai was not being held despite reports that he was being held at Guantanamo Bay.
“We consulted with U.S. government experts who assessed that the (release) of Noorzai to Afghanistan would not materially alter any risk to Americans from that country or the nature of the drug trade there,” the official said.
Weeks after Biden’s decision on Noorzai, the president approved a strike in Kabul that killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
“As we said publicly at the time, we told the Taliban immediately after the strike that if Mark was harmed in any way, we would hold them directly accountable and that the best way for them to probably start rebuilding trust with the U.S. and the world, was to Immediately release Mark,” the official said.
The official said the window of opportunity for a swap finally emerged this month, with the government “moving very quickly”. But they won’t say where Frierichs was held during his more than two years in captivity, and they won’t say whether the U.S. gave the Taliban anything else to get Frierichs free.
Another senior administration official said the United States would continue to make it clear to the Taliban that they must stop taking hostages if they are to gain international recognition.
The first official would not say whether the Taliban had held any other Americans in their homes. They said they knew about American filmmaker Ivor Shearer and his producers, whom the Committee to Protect Journalists said were detained by the Taliban in August, but gave no further details.
This story has been updated with more details.