WASHINGTON — An American contractor held hostage in Afghanistan for more than two years by the Taliban has been released, his family said Monday, as a Taliban drug lord jailed by the United States 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 and was believed to have been held since then by the Taliban-linked Haqqani network.
Negotiations for his release had centered 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 on Monday that he had spent 17 years and six months in U.S. captivity before being released.
The exchange is one of the most significant prisoner swaps to take place under the Biden administration, coming five months after a separate deal with Russia that resulted in the release of Marine veteran Trevor Reed. It took place despite concerns from his family and other advocates that the U.S. military departure from Afghanistan, and the collapse of the government there, could make it harder to bring him home and could deflect attention away from his imprisonment.
President Joe Biden, who is in the U.K. to attend Queen Elizabeth II's funeral, called Frerichs's family on Monday morning to share the “good news” that his administration was able to secure his release, according to a senior…
