Biden calls the families of 3 Americans held by the Taliban to tell them that he has not reached an agreement to release them

In a nearly 30-minute phone call Sunday afternoon, President Biden delivered difficult news to the families of three Americans held hostage by the Taliban. He did not have an agreement with the Taliban to free their loved ones from captivity, despite what US officials described to CBS News as a significant gift the US had given days earlier in Doha. The US considers Ryan Corbett and George Glezmann to be arbitrarily detained by the Taliban, and describes Mahmood Habibi, who holds dual American and Afghan citizenship, as “arbitrarily detained” since 2022.

Ahmad Shah Habibi, the brother of Mahmood Habibi, told CBS News that during the conversation, Mr. Biden made it clear that he would not agree to the Taliban’s request that the US release Muhammad Rahim al Afghani, who is being held at Guantanamo Bay, unless the Taliban, now the government of -Afghanistan, also frees Mahmood. An NSC spokesman declined to respond to CBS’s inquiry about that specific claim.

Mahmood Habibi disappeared in Afghanistan in 2022, and the Taliban denied abducting him. In a public notice sent by the FBI in August 2024, the agency said it “believes” that Habibi was taken by Taliban fighters or security forces and “has not been heard from since his disappearance.” The FBI said in its statement that Habibi was working as a contractor at a telecommunications company in Kabul when he disappeared.

The Taliban still say they do not have Habibi in custody.

“No, we don’t have him,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told CBS News on Monday.

When asked if Mahmoud disappeared in Afghanistan, Mujahid said, “It is not clear again, because we did not know him before.”

Ahmad Habibi told CBS News, “My family is very hopeful that my brother is alive. There are things that neither we nor the US government can say publicly, but Mahmood’s case is different from the other two Americans.”

“We know that some families are eager to bring their loved ones home and I told the president that we also want them home,” added Ahmad Habibi. “But anyone who speculates that my brother is dead is just following the Taliban’s allegations. We are grateful that President Biden has pledged not to leave Mahmood behind,” and said national security adviser Jake Sullivan has also made similar assurances.

The FBI declined to comment.

Corbettfluent in Pashto, he was working for local NGOs before starting a microfinance and consulting business in Kabul when he was arrested with three colleagues – one German and two Afghans – on a business trip to northern Afghanistan in 2022.

Glezmann is an Atlanta native who was arrested while visiting tourists in December 2022.

Ryan Corbett’s family calls Mr. Biden publicly said he was considering a deal to bring him and Glezmann home.

“We hope that President Biden will have the courage to take the deal in front of him, as the lives of several Americans are on his shoulders,” said Erin Pelton, a spokeswoman for the Corbett family, told CBS News.

Corbett’s wife, Anna Corbett, described the call with the president when she appeared on Fox News on Monday.

“He was kind and compassionate, but what I heard him say was that he wasn’t bringing Ryan home, and that really hurt me,” said Anna Corbett. He criticized Mr. Biden by refusing to accept the Taliban’s terms of the agreement. “It’s unacceptable and it’s incredibly traumatic for our family.”

She has launched a public campaign in recent days to urge the incoming administration to press for her husband’s release, and has traveled to President-elect Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago residence in hopes of making a personal appeal to Trump. Mr. Neither Biden nor Trump have met him so far.

Anna Corbett told Fox News that Trump sent national security adviser and current Florida attorney general Mike Waltz to meet with her. He said he spent more than an hour listening to his family’s case. He expressed frustration that it took more than a year to get a similar meeting with the current national security adviser, Jake Sullivan.

The Taliban have been demanding that the US release Muhammed Rahim al-Afghani, who is being held in an illegal war detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. A source familiar with his case said that the intelligence community in the US and the Pentagon oppose Rahim’s release and will not confirm that he no longer poses a threat to the US. change.

Rahim was arrested in Pakistan in 2007 by the CIA and was the last prisoner sent to Guantanamo Bay by the Bush administration in 2008. He has never been charged with war crimes, but a review board has occasionally seen his continued detention as a matter of national security. the need. His 2016 intelligence profile describes him as an al Qaeda transporter.

In its statement acknowledging the call, the White House also noted that Mr. Biden was able to bring home US citizens who were imprisoned before the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Corbett, Glezmann and Habibi were arrested after a subsequent visit to Afghanistan. the return of the Taliban to power. That the rise of the Taliban followed by a partnership agreement negotiated by The Trump administration for the US military to withdraw and a powerful surprise attack by the Taliban that caught the Biden administration off guard, leading to chaos. US release. Not wanting to stay out of the US military, NATO forces also pulled out.

The US does not officially recognize the Taliban, with its poor human rights record, as the legitimate government of Afghanistan but has been in contact with its leaders through US agencies and the government of Qatar. Last weekend in Doha, the President’s Special Envoy Roger Carstens and NSC chief Jen Daskal pressed for a deal with the Taliban to free the Americans.

The US official described the Doha meetings as unsuccessful but declined to reveal which other people the Biden administration was willing to give to the Taliban as part of a potential trade. The White House described Biden’s efforts as continuing until the end of his term.

Mr. Biden has devoted a large part of his career to foreign policy, and that part his inheritance it is very important to him. In his speech on Monday at the State Department, the president will describe the tumultuous US withdrawal from Afghanistan, arguably his biggest foreign policy failure, as successfully ending America’s longest war.

contributed to this report.