American contractor freed by Taliban in swap

Washington, September 19

An American contractor held hostage in Afghanistan for more than two years by the Taliban has been released, his family on Monday said, as a Taliban drug lord jailed by the US was also freed and returned to Kabul.

Mark Frerichs, a Navy veteran who had spent more than a decade in Afghanistan as a civilian contractor, was abducted in January 2020 by the Taliban-linked Haqqani network.

Negotiations for his release had centred on a deal that would also involve the release of Bashir Noorzai, a notorious drug lord and member of the Taliban, who told reporters in Kabul that he spent 17 years and six months in US captivity. The Biden administration did not immediately confirm details of the prisoner swap, but a sister of Frerichs, who is from Lombard, Illinois, thanked US government officials, who helped secure her brother’s release.

“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 more than 31 months he has been a hostage. We never gave up hope that he would survive and come home safely to us,” said a statement from his sister, Charlene Cakora.

In Afghanistan, Noorzai told reporters at a press conference that he had been released from an unspecified US prison and handed over earlier in the day to the Taliban in Kabul, in exchange for an American prisoner held in Afghanistan whom he did not identify. The Taliban-appointed foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, welcomed the exchange, saying it marked the start of a “new era” in US-Taliban relations.

However, there has been no public sign of Washington moving forward on any sort of prisoner trade or exchange. — AP

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