Taliban release an American man who was abducted while traveling in Afghanistan

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Taliban release an American man who was abducted while traveling in Afghanistan

2025-03-21 06:32 Last Updated At：06:40

WASHINGTON (AP) — An American man who was abducted more than two years ago while traveling through Afghanistan as a tourist has been released by the Taliban in a deal with the Trump administration that Qatari negotiators helped broker, the State Department said Thursday.

George Glezmann, an airline mechanic from Atlanta, is the third American detainee to be released by the Taliban since January. He was seized by the Taliban's intelligence services in December 2022 and was designated by the U.S. government as wrongfully detained the following year.

In a statement, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Glezmann was on his way back to the United States to be reunited with his wife, Aleksandra, and praised Qatar for “steadfast commitment and diplomatic efforts” that he said were “instrumental in securing George’s release.”

“George’s release is a positive and constructive step," Rubio said. “It is also a reminder that other Americans are still detained in Afghanistan. President Trump will continue his tireless work to free ALL Americans unjustly detained around the world.”

Glezmann was being accompanied back to the U.S., through Qatar's capital, Doha, by Adam Boehler, who has been handling hostage issues for President Donald Trump's administration. The Taliban disclosed earlier Thursday that Boehler had met with a delegation that included Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi.

Glezmann, 66, was in Afghanistan as a tourist at the time of his abduction and has visited more than 100 countries as part of his passion for exploring different cultures, according to a profile on the website of the Foley Foundation, an organization that advocates for the release of Americans detained by foreign countries.

The release of Glezmann is part of what the Taliban has previously described as the “normalization" of ties between the U.S. and Afghanistan following the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Most countries still don’t recognize the Taliban’s rule.

Glezmann's release follows a separate deal, arranged in January in the final days of the Biden administration and also mediated by the Qataris, that secured the releases of Ryan Corbett and William McKenty.

The Taliban’s Foreign Ministry in Kabul said at the time that those two U.S. citizens had been exchanged for Khan Mohammed, who was sentenced to two life terms in 2008 after being convicted under U.S. narco-terrorism laws for securing heroin and opium that he knew was bound for the U.S.

Unlike in that arrangement, the U.S. did not give up any prisoner to secure Glezmann’s release, which was done as a goodwill gesture, according to an official briefed on the matter who insisted on anonymity due to the sensitivity of the negotiations.

On Thursday, Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry confirmed Glezmann's release on “humanitarian grounds." In a statement, it said the “Islamic Emirate again reaffirms its longstanding position that dialogue, understanding and diplomacy provide effective avenues for resolving all issues.”

President Joe Biden contemplated before he left office an earlier proposal that would have involved the release of Glezmann and other Americans for Muhammad Rahim, one of the remaining detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

But Biden told families during a call in January that he would not support trading Rahim unless the Taliban released Mahmood Habibi, an Afghan-American businessman who worked as a contractor for a Kabul-based telecommunications company and vanished in 2022.

The FBI and Habibi's family have said they believe Habibi was taken by Taliban forces, but the Taliban has denied holding him. Representatives for Habibi on Thursday cited what they said was “overwhelming evidence” that he was arrested by the Taliban after his home was searched by people identifying themselves as part of the Taliban's security service.

"We are confident that the Trump Administration will hold firm that my brother needs to be released for relations with the U.S. to move forward," one of Habibi’s brothers, Ahmad, said in a statement. “We have reason to be confident Mahmood is alive and in Taliban custody, despite their hollow denials of holding him. My brother is an innocent man who has been held away from his wife, young daughter, and elderly parents for 953 days.”

Associated Press writers Victoria Eastwood in Cairo and Munir Ahmed in Islamabad contributed to this report.

3 people killed in Russian attacks on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia despite limited truce

2025-03-22 23:56 Last Updated At：03-23 00:00

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched a drone attack on the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, killing three people and wounded 14, Ukrainian officials said Saturday, despite agreeing to a limited ceasefire.

Zaporizhzhia was hit by 12 drones, police said. Regional head Ivan Fedorov said that residential buildings, cars and communal buildings were set on fire in the Friday night attack. Photos showing emergency services scouring the rubble for survivors.

Ukraine and Russia agreed in principle Wednesday to a limited ceasefire after U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with the countries’ leaders, though it remains to be seen what possible targets would be off-limits to attack.

The three sides appeared to hold starkly different views about what the deal covered. While the White House said “energy and infrastructure” would be part of the agreement, the Kremlin declared that the agreement referred more narrowly to “energy infrastructure.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would also like railways and ports to be protected.

The dead in Zaporizhzhia were three members of one family. The bodies of the daughter and father were pulled out from under the rubble while doctors unsuccessfully fought for the mother’s life for more than 10 hours, Fedorov wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

The Ukrainian air force reported that Russia fired a total of 179 drones and decoys in the latest wave of attacks overnight into Saturday. It said 100 were intercepted and a further 63 lost, likely having been electronically jammed.

Officials in the Kyiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions also reported fires breaking out due to the falling debris from intercepted drones.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense, meanwhile, said its air defense systems shot down 47 Ukrainian drones.

Local authorities said two people were injured and there was damage to six apartments when a Ukrainian drone hit a high-rise apartment block in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on Friday night.

Zelenskyy told reporters after Wednesday’s call with Trump that Ukraine and U.S. negotiators will discuss technical details related to the partial ceasefire during a meeting in Saudi Arabia on Monday. Russian negotiators are also set to hold separate talks with U.S. officials there.

Zelenskyy emphasized that Ukraine is open to a full, 30-day ceasefire that Trump has proposed, saying: “We will not be against any format, any steps toward unconditional ceasefire.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a complete ceasefire conditional on a halt of arms supplies to Kyiv and a suspension of Ukraine’s military mobilization — demands rejected by Ukraine and its Western allies.

Kremlin spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Saturday that Ukraine was continuing with “treacherous attacks” on energy infrastructure facilities, and that Russia reserved the right to a “symmetrical” response.

Her comments came after Russia accused Ukrainian forces Friday of blowing up a gas metering station near the town of Sudzha in Russia’s Kursk region. Ukraine’s military General Staff rejected Moscow’s accusations and blamed the Russian military for shelling the station as part of Russia’s “discrediting campaign.”

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine