The United States and the Taliban regime carried out a prisoner exchange on Monday, between a veteran of the United States Navy and a key supporter of the Islamist movement held for 17 years by the Americans, welcomed with fervor in Kabul.
The American Mark Frerichs, kidnapped in 2020 in Afghanistan, was exchanged for Bashar Noorzaï, a warlord close to the Taliban imprisoned in the United States for heroin trafficking.
“After lengthy negotiations, American citizen Mark Frerichs was handed over to an American delegation and that delegation handed over to us [Bashar Noorzaï] today [lundi] at Kabul airport,” Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi told a news conference in the capital.
“Today we secured the release of Mark Frerichs and he will be returning home soon,” Joe Biden confirmed in a statement. “The successful negotiations leading to Mark’s release required difficult decisions, which I did not take lightly.”
“Difficult” decisions
The American president did not specify what decisions he had to take, but a senior American official quoted on condition of anonymity the pardon granted to Bashar Noorzaï, arrested in 2005 and sentenced in 2009 in the United States to prison for life.
Former US Navy Mark Frerichs was working as a civil engineer on construction projects in Afghanistan when he was taken hostage, according to the US State Department.
He was in Doha on Monday in a “stable” state of health, said the senior American official.
On January 31, Joe Biden had asked the Taliban to “immediately” release Mark Frerichs “before we could hope for any consideration of their aspirations for legitimacy”. “It’s not negotiable,” he insisted about the new Afghan government, which has not been recognized by any country in the world.
Released Afghan prisoner Bashar Noorzai held no official position in the Taliban, government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP.
He nevertheless “provided significant support, including in arms”, during the emergence of the Islamist movement in the 1990s, he added.
A close collaborator of the late Mullah Omar, mythical founder of the Taliban, Bashar Noorzai fought the Soviet occupation with the mujahideen forces supported by the United States. During his trial, US prosecutors said he ran a “global narcotics network” and supported the first Taliban regime between 1996 and 2001.
“Source of Peace”
“If the EIA [Émirat islamique d’Afghanistan] hadn’t shown his strong determination, I wouldn’t be here today,” Bashar Noorzai told reporters on his arrival in Kabul.
“My release in exchange for an American will be a source of peace between Afghanistan and the Americans,” he added.
His return was celebrated with fanfare by the Taliban regime. Photos posted on social media show masked Taliban fighters putting flower necklaces around her neck.
Bashar Noorzai is the second Afghan detainee released by the United States in recent months. In June, Assadullah Haroon Gul was released after 15 years in Guantanamo prison.
Mr Haroon had languished without charge for years in the US detention center in Cuba after he was arrested in 2006 while working as a honey trader between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The release of Noorzai marks the beginning of a “new chapter” in relations between Afghanistan and the United States, underlined the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
“Major Success”
His release is a “major success” for the Taliban, according to Hekmatullah Hekmat, an Afghan security analyst, interviewed by AFP.
“The Taliban can tell their infantry and the Afghans that they are capable of bringing back their nationals detained by opposition groups. »
In August 2021, the Taliban regained power after 20 years of occupation of the country by the United States and its NATO allies. The war claimed the lives of more than 2,400 American soldiers and more than 3,500 from other NATO countries, according to the US military. Tens of thousands of Afghans also perished.
Despite the Taliban’s pride in having regained power, the country of 38 million people is facing one of the worst humanitarian crises on the planet, according to the United Nations.
The situation only got worse when the disbursements of billions of dollars in foreign aid, which had supported the Afghan economy for decades, were suddenly cut off when the United States withdrew. Some $7 billion in reserves have been frozen by Washington.