American hostage of Taliban freed in prisoner exchange, family says 

WASHINGTON (AP) — An American contractor held hostage in Afghanistan for more than two years by the Taliban has been released in exchange for a convicted Taliban drug lord jailed in the United States, according to the man’s family and U.S. officials.

Mark Frerichs, a Navy veteran who had spent more than a decade in Afghanistan as a civilian contractor, was abducted in January 2020 and was believed to have been held since then by the Taliban-linked Haqqani network.

Negotiations for his release had centered on a deal that would also involve the release of Bashir Noorzai, a notorious drug lord and member of the Taliban who told reporters in Kabul on Monday that he had spent 17 years and six months in U.S. captivity before being released.

The exchange is one of the most significant prisoner swaps to take place under the Biden administration, coming five months after a separate deal with Russia that resulted in the release of Marine veteran Trevor Reed. It took place despite concerns from his family and other advocates that the U.S. military departure from Afghanistan, and the collapse of the government there, could make it harder to bring him home and could deflect attention away from his imprisonment.

President Joe Biden, who is in the United Kingdom to attend Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral, called Frerichs’s family Monday morning to share the “good news” that his administration was able to secure his release, according to a senior administration official.

The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, called the decision to grant Noorzai clemency a “difficult decision” but necessary to reunite a U.S. citizen with his family.

A sister of Frerichs, who is from Lombard, Illinois, thanked U.S. government officials who helped secure her brother’s release.

“I am so happy to hear that my brother is safe and on his way home to us. Our family has prayed for this each day of the more than 31 months he has been a hostage. We never gave up hope that he would survive and come home safely to us,” said a statement from the sister, Charlene Cakora.

In Afghanistan, Noorzai, who was arrested in 2005 on federal heroin trafficking charges in the U.S., told reporters at a press conference that he had been released from an unspecified U.S. prison and handed over earlier in the day to the Taliban in Kabul as part of the swap. Frerichs’s family and U.S. officials subsequently confirmed that Frerichs was the American who was part of the deal.