Taliban free 2 Americans in ‘goodwill gesture’, US says
- The release was not part of any larger prisoner swap, and no money changed hands, State Department spokesman says
- The two Americans have not been identified, but CNN says one of them is filmmaker Ivor Shearer, who was arrested in August
The Taliban have freed two Americans in detention in Afghanistan, the State Department said on Tuesday.
“This, we understand, to have been a goodwill gesture on the part of the Taliban. This was not part of any swap of prisoners or detainees. There was no money that exchanged hands,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.
The two Americans were released to Qatar, which has played a major role supporting US interests in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover.
Price said that confidentiality rules forbade him from offering more details on the two Americans.
CNN reported that one of them was Ivor Shearer, a filmmaker arrested in August with his Afghan producer – whose fate is unclear – while filming the site of a US drone attack that killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
The pair was released three months after the Taliban freed Mark Frerichs, an American engineer, in an exchange for Bashir Noorzai, a convicted drug smuggler held by the United States since 2005 and granted clemency by US President Joe Biden.
Asked if there were other Americans being detained in Afghanistan, Price indicated there were.