PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The Biden administration has been in talks with the Taliban to exchange Americans detained in Afghanistan for Afghans in U.S. custody, a senior Taliban leader with direct knowledge of the negotiations told NBC News on Wednesday.
The Taliban leader, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly, said the two sides had been negotiating for the past two years but had so far failed to reach a deal.
He said the Taliban had demanded three Afghan nationals, including Muhammad Rahim, the only Afghan prisoner left at Guantánamo Bay, a detention site in Cuba for the mostly Muslim men taken into custody around the world in the U.S. “war on terror.”
U.S. officials say Rahim, who has been held there without charge since 2008, was a senior aide in Al Qaeda, the terrorist group led by Osama bin Laden that carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Others say he held a much lesser role as a courier and translator and is not a national security threat.
“His mother has been protesting and made several demands for his release,” the Taliban leader said.
The Taliban leader, who said he has participated in some of the meetings with U.S. officials, confirmed that the Taliban had captured three American nationals in the past two years.
“We believe that the U.S. administration will make it happen as they are very interested in getting back their three nationals currently held in Afghanistan,” he said.
He did not name the three Americans, who he said were accused of spying and preaching Christianity in Afghanistan. The Taliban have previously confirmed they are holding Ryan Corbett and George Glezmann, both of whom the State Department has classified as wrongfully detained.
Corbett, a longtime resident of Afghanistan before the U.S. withdrawal, was arrested on a business trip to the country in August 2022, while Glezmann was arrested during a trip in December of that year. Both men are said to have experienced declining health during their detention.
The Taliban have not confirmed whether they are holding a third person, Mahmood Habibi, a naturalized American who worked for an American consulting group and was arrested in his native Afghanistan in August 2022 after the U.S. drone strike that killed Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
In addition to Rahim, the Taliban leader said, Afghan officials also demanded the release of two other Afghan nationals imprisoned in the United States who “have nothing to do with terrorism or politics.”
“The charges leveled against them are different, and we will hopefully get them back to Afghanistan,” he said.
A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said in a statement that “the safety and security of Americans overseas is one of the Biden-Harris Administration’s top priorities, and we are working around the clock to ensure George, Ryan, and Mahmood’s safe return."
The spokesperson said that "President Biden and his team continue to work, 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 the Administration will do so throughout the remainder of the term.”
According to a 2014 Senate report, the CIA subjected Rahim, who was captured in Pakistan, to “enhanced” interrogation techniques that included sleep deprivation sessions lasting up to almost six days. They did not produce any intelligence.
Rahim is ineligible to leave Guantánamo, having been deemed a continuing national security threat by a federal review panel multiple times, most recently in November 2023.
The U.S.-Taliban negotiations were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
In the past four years, Biden has brought back more than 75 American citizens and residents detained around the world, including three from China in a prisoner swap this fall and four from Russia in a multinational prisoner swap last summer. In 2022, Biden approved the release of an Afghan drug lord in U.S. custody in exchange for Navy veteran Mark Frerichs, who was held captive in Afghanistan for 2½ years.
But agreeing to release an Afghan prisoner at Guantánamo could be politically trickier for Biden, who has come under withering criticism from lawmakers over the chaotic withdrawal of U.S.-led forces from Afghanistan in August 2021.
The White House has said Biden is determined to close Guantánamo Bay before the end of his term.
On Monday, the Defense Department said it transferred 11 Yemeni men to Oman this week who had been held without charge at Guantánamo for more than two decades. Their release brings the total number of remaining detainees at Guantánamo to 15, the fewest since 2002.
Mushtaq Yusufzai reported from Peshawar and Jennifer Jett from Hong Kong.
