American prisoner released by Taliban after first high-level U.S. visit

U.S. citizen George Glezmann has been released by the Taliban after 2½ years in captivity, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement Thursday.

Glezmann, an airline mechanic, was detained by the Taliban in December 2022 while visiting Afghanistan for five days as a tourist. In his statement, Rubio thanked the government of Qatar, “whose steadfast commitment and diplomatic efforts were instrumental in securing George’s release.”

The news came the same day the Taliban announced that Adam Boehler, President Donald Trump’s interim envoy for hostage affairs, had visited Kabul for talks. The visit marked the highest-level, publicly known U.S. engagement with Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover in 2021.

While Rubio called Glezmann’s release a “positive and constructive step,” he cautioned that it’s also “a reminder that other Americans are still detained in Afghanistan.”

It’s unclear how many U.S. citizens are imprisoned in the country.

The Taliban-run Foreign Ministry said Glezmann was released on “humanitarian grounds,” adding that the U.S. delegation and Afghan diplomats “discussed bilateral relations, the exchange of prisoners, and consular access to Afghans in the United States.”

Boehler was accompanied on his trip by Zalmay Khalilzad, the former U.S. special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation.

The Taliban has long sought international recognition and access to frozen central bank reserves to allay a mounting economic crisis. But the regime’s repressive policies, including bans on women attending secondary schools and universities, have hampered efforts to re-establish ties with the West.

“I wouldn’t read this as a portent of expanding U.S. engagement with the Taliban,” said Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington. “The administration has limited objectives in Afghanistan, and it isn’t about to accord extensive policy space to developing ties with a regime it doesn’t recognize.”

Freeing Glezmann, he said, is “likely a tactical play rather than the emergence of a broader engagement strategy.”

In January, two other Americans, Ryan Corbett and William W. McKenty III, were also released by the Taliban. Corbett, from New York, was detained in Afghanistan more than two years ago, while McKenty’s detention had not been previously publicized.

Negotiations for that prisoner exchange had started two years ago and took place during several rounds of negotiations in Doha, Qatar.

At least one other American, Mahmood Habibi, is still believed to be held in Afghanistan. Habibi, an Afghan American businessman, was taken from a vehicle near his home in Kabul in August 2022.

“It is believed that Mr. Habibi was taken by Taliban military or security forces and has not been heard from since his disappearance,” the FBI said in August, as it appealed for information about his whereabouts.

The Taliban has denied it is holding Habibi.