Biden speaks with relatives of Americans held by Taliban, but deal to bring them home still elusive
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden spoke Sunday with family members of three Americans the U.S. government wants to bring home from Afghanistan, but it was not clear from the call whether a deal to bring them back, now on the table, could be completed before he takes office next week leaves.
Biden’s call with family members of Ryan CorbettGeorge Glezmann and Mahmoud Habibi took place in the waning days of his administration, as officials tried to broker a deal that could bring them home in exchange for Muhammad Rahim, one of the remaining prisoners at Guantánamo Bay.
Corbett, who was living in Afghanistan with his family at the time the collapse of the US-backed government in 2021, was kidnapped by the Taliban in August 2022 while on a business trip and Glezmann, an aviation mechanic from Atlanta, was taken by Taliban intelligence services in December 2022 while traveling in the country.
Officials believe the Taliban are still holding both men and Habibi, an Afghan-American businessman who worked as a contractor for a Kabul-based telecommunications company and also went missing in 2022. The FBI said Habibi and his driver were taken. 29 other employees of the company, but all of them have now been released, except Habibi and other people.
The Taliban have denied possessing Habibi, complicating talks with the US government.
During the phone call Sunday, Biden told the families that his administration would not trade Rahim, who has been held at Guantanamo since 2008, unless the Taliban releases Habibi, according to a statement from Habibi’s brother, Ahmad Habibi.
“President Biden was very clear when he told us that he would not trade Rahim if the Taliban did not let my brother go,” the statement said. “He said he wouldn’t leave him behind. My family is very grateful that he stands up for my brother.”
Ryan Fayhee, an attorney acting on behalf of Corbett’s relatives, said the Biden family was grateful for the call but also implored him to take action on the deal.
“A deal is now on the table and the decision to accept it – however imperfect it may be – rests solely with the president,” Fayhee said in a statement. “Tough decisions make great presidents, and we hope and believe that President Biden will not let perfection be the enemy of the good when American lives are at stake.”
If no deal is struck by January 20, it would be up to the new Trump administration to kick-start negotiations, although it is unclear whether officials would take a different approach when it comes to the release of a Guantanamo detainee who is considered a hazard by the U.S. government.
There are only 15 men left at Guantanamo, down from a peak of nearly 800 under the former president George W Bush.
Rahim is one of only three remaining detainees who have never been charged, but who have also never been deemed safe for the US to even consider transferring to other countries, as is the case with hundreds of other Muslim detainees brought to Guantanamo but never charged.
The US has described Rahim as a direct advisor, courier and agent for Osama bin Laden and other high-ranking al-Qaeda figures and poses an ongoing threat to U.S. national security despite never indicting him or otherwise formally disclosing any evidence against Rahim during his seventeen years in Guantanamo.
Successive US administrations have kept Rahim secret to some extent, even before the military-run detention at Guantánamo.
His lawyer, James Connell, recently told a UN human rights committee that Rahim had been “systematically silenced” by the US. Connell claimed to the same panel that a US official had told him that “every word Rahim utters on any subject will be classified based on national security.”
The Biden administration September 2022 exchanged a convicted Taliban drug lord jailed in the US for an American civilian contractor held by the Taliban for more than two years.
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Associated Press writer Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington contributed to this report.