The Americans being held by Taliban to swap for Guantanamo Bay prisoners

Do not travel to Afghanistan due to the risk of violence, detention or kidnapping. That is the advice from the American government to its citizens considering visiting the central Asian country, ruled by the Taliban since they seized Kabul in August 2021.

Few Americans have gone against the advice but last week the US State Department confirmed that two men who did travel to Afghanistan and one who was already there have been arrested by the Taliban on seemingly spurious charges.

A State Department spokesperson identified them as Ryan Corbett, George Glezmann and Mahmood Habibi.

The Taliban have admitted to detaining only two of the men, Mr Corbett and Mr Glezmann.

“Both American nationals violated the country’s law and discussion has been held with the US officials in this regard,” the Taliban said on Sunday.

They are holding them, a Taliban spokesperson suggested, to exchange for Afghans imprisoned by the US in Guantanamo Bay.

“We also have prisoners in America, prisoners in Guantanamo,” Zabiullah Mujahid said earlier this month.

“We should free our prisoners in exchange for them.”

The military jail near Cuba, notorious for the humiliating and allegedly abusive treatment of its prisoners, was set up by the George W Bush administration after 9/11 and once held over 200 Afghans, most without charge or legal recourse to challenge their detention. The Voice of America reported earlier this year only one Afghan national remains detained there.

Here’s what we know about the three Americans held by the Taliban.

Ryan Corbett

Mr Corbett from New York started an enterprise called “Bloom Afghanistan” in 2017 to boost the country’s private sector by providing business consulting services, microfinance lending and evaluation of international development projects. He wanted to help Afghans start their own businesses.

But after the Taliban drove out Western troops and captured Kabul, he left the country with his pregnant wife and children.

He returned, apparently to train the Bloom Afghanistan staff, but was detained in August 2022 despite having a valid visa. The State Department said last year that he was wrongfully detained.

The Taliban haven’t stated a reason for Mr Corbett’s detention but have allowed him to make eight “desperate and difficult” calls to his wife in the past 22 months, his lawyer Ryan Fayhee told The Independent.

“On top of being beaten severely, he’s deprived of food, nutrients, sunlight and any human interaction. We are told that he has experienced fainting spells and lost significant weight in the Taliban’s custody,” the lawyer said, claiming that Mr Corbett was being held in a small basement cell.

The Taliban have not allowed consular access to Mr Corbett. The Independent previously reported that they do not provide adequate medical assistance to prisoners they call “Western collaborators” who are injured during torture.

“This is what we call hostage diplomacy because on one hand they want to join the world community but then reject the established norm of consular services that allow another country’s representatives to go in and see after the care and safety of individual prisoners,” Mr Fayhee said.

His wife, Anna Corbett, told The Independent that “it is a race against time to bring Ryan home before it is too late given ongoing reports of his deteriorating health”. She has called on US president Joe Biden “to undertake the difficult work it will take to free Ryan”.

Mr Fayhee said the Taliban are making a mistake thinking they can get their people out of Guantanamo by “victimising an innocent man and family”.

“This is not a step forward but backward and the Taliban will not gain anything from this bargain,” he said.

The US government, the lawyer pointed out, has substantial leverage over what the Taliban want. “The Taliban want legitimation as the sovereign authority in Afghanistan, they want to be part of the world community, they want sanctions to be lifted and they want to be taken seriously. Quite like Russia and quite like Iran, the choice is to recognise the rule of law and to have a legitimate criminal justice system,” he said.

“But the Taliban choose not to be a part of the international community on their own by detaining and torturing foreign citizens like Ryan Corbett in basement cells without offering any transparency.”

George Glezmann

Mr Glezmann, 65, travelled to Afghanistan in December 2022 to explore its culture and artefacts. He was on a five-day vacation from his work as an airline mechanic for Delta Airlines in Atlanta.

He has reportedly spent the past 18 months in a small underground cell with other detainees, with intermittent periods of solitary confinement, and his health is declining.

His ordeal was highlighted when the US Congress passed a resolution seeking his release last Tuesday. “During his detention, George Glezmann has had only seven phone calls totaling 54 minutes with his family and limited in-person visits with representatives of Qatar, the protecting power of the United States in Afghanistan,” the resolution read, adding that he suffers from several medical conditions like facial tumours, hypertension, and severe malnutrition.

The Taliban have held Mr Glezmann “without charging him with a crime or granting him due process in any judicial proceedings”, the resolution said.

His family fears he may not survive the detention.

The US Secretary of State said last October that Mr Glezmann was wrongfully detained.

His wife has urged the Taliban to release him on humanitarian grounds. He was a simple tourist travelling to Afghanistan as part of his plan to visit 100 countries, Aleksandra Glezmann has said.

Mahmood Habibi

Mr Habibi seemingly paid the price for the American strike that killed Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan on 31 July 2022.

The Taliban likely assumed Mr Habibi’s employer, the US Federal Aviation Administration, was involved in the strike, but did not charge the civil aviation expert with a crime.

His detention was flagged in March by the US Congress in a resolution seeking his release. Mr Habibi was born in Afghanistan but has US citizenship.

He was arrested on 10 August 2022 after the Taliban searched his home and took away his laptop and paperwork.

Mr Habibi’s wife, with whom he has a young daughter, has had no contact with him since he was taken away.

He is reportedly held by the General Directorate of Intelligence but the Taliban have denied having him in custody, the Congress resolution noted.

“He could live anywhere but he preferred to live there, to work for his country and work for the future of Afghanistan,” his sister Amna Nawaz told PBS.

American lawmakers have urged the Biden administration to ask the “Taliban to respect Mahmood Habibi’shuman rights and provide full, unfettered, and consistent health and safety visits to Mahmood Habibi while in detention”.