U.S. Officials See Hostage Release as Promising Sign for Deal With Taliban

American officials involved in hostage negotiation efforts saw the Taliban’s release this week of a U.S. citizen held in Afghanistan as an encouraging sign that the two sides could reach a broader prisoner deal to resolve the fate of the other Americans held there.

Still, the path to any agreement remains fraught. Taliban officials are seeking the release of a high-level Qaeda detainee held at the naval prison at Guantánamo Bay, and the whereabouts of some Americans in Afghanistan remain unknown — possibly even to the Taliban. The challenges illustrate the delicate complexities of hostage negotiations.

Both sides have much to gain from reaching an agreement. The Taliban is seeking international recognition, while President Trump has made the release of Americans held overseas a priority in his two presidencies.

Mr. Trump’s terms for a deal with the Taliban were clear. After Amir Amiry, the American, was released, one of the president’s top counterterrorism advisers, Sebastian Gorka, wrote on social media: “All Americans must come home. That means all.”

Mr. Gorka accompanied Mr. Amiry home, along with Adam Boehler, the Trump administration’s special envoy for hostage response, who has visited Afghanistan several times this year. In a photo of Mr. Amiry’s plane ride home released by Qatari officials, Mr. Boehler wears a jacket with the flags of the United States and Qatar, which has played a key role in the negotiations.

“Amir Amiry’s release was a positive step by the Taliban as we work towards the release of all Americans detained in Afghanistan,” a State Department spokesman said in a statement on Tuesday.

The Taliban did not respond to requests to comment. Afghanistan has been engulfed in an internet blackout since Monday, bringing communications to a near complete halt after the country’s leader, Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada, ordered a crackdown to prevent the diffusion of “vice,” according to a diplomatic official speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the restrictions. The official, alongside an Afghan Foreign Ministry official, said the blackout would continue “until further notice.”

One hurdle in reaching a deal is that the Taliban must account for all the Americans held in Afghanistan, including Paul Edwin Overby Jr., a Massachusetts author who was last seen in 2014 in Khost, a city in the southeastern part of the country, while researching a book. U.S. investigators fear he might be dead, and if so it is unclear whether the Taliban know where to find his remains.

The Taliban are also holding two other Americans, according to congressional documents and U.S. officials. They are Dennis Walter Coyle and Polynesis Jackson, a former U.S. Army soldier. The State Department lists Mr. Coyle as a wrongful detainee, but the circumstances surrounding Mr. Jackson’s detention remain murky.

Another American who disappeared in Afghanistan is Mahmood Shah Habibi, who the State Department says was abducted in Afghanistan in August 2022. Along with colleagues at a telecommunications company, he was detained by the Afghan authorities after the C.I.A. killed Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s leader, in Kabul that month.

In June, the State Department offered a reward of up to $5 million for information about Mr. Habibi but said the Taliban had not provided any details “regarding his whereabouts or condition.”

Mr. Habibi’s brother, Ahmad Habibi, praised the Trump administration’s efforts to secure his brother’s release. “My brother is an innocent American and he deserves to come home,” he said.

Taliban officials have focused on the return of Muhammad Rahim, a man suspected of being a Qaeda operative who was captured in Lahore, Pakistan, in June 2007 and held for many months by the C.I.A., according to a U.S. official and others with knowledge of the negotiations.

He was accused of serving as a “translator, courier, facilitator and operative for the group’s senior leadership, including Osama bin Laden,” according to the U.S. government.

The United States says that Mr. Rahim had advance knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks and that he “has sought to intimidate and taunt his captors even if it means never being released and dying as a martyr, which he appears to welcome.”

In March 2008, Mr. Rahim became the last detainee that the George W. Bush administration moved to the Guantánamo Bay prison as a prisoner in the war against terrorism. He has never been before a court or charged with a crime.

A U.S. interagency intelligence review board has repeatedly recommended against his release, mostly recently in July 2024, describing his detention as a national security necessity. The C.I.A. has objected to releasing him.

Carol Rosenberg contributed reporting, and Kitty Bennett contributed research.