[The exchange — both government and Taliban officials said Tuesday that the transfer was imminent — would be a major step toward reopening peace talks between the United States and the insurgents. And some Afghan officials held out hope that the release would make the Taliban more likely to agree to an eventual truce.]
By Adam
Goldman and David Zucchino
 |
|
Kevin
C. King, an American professor, was abducted by the Taliban in 2016.
Credit
Al-Emara, via Associated Press
|
WASHINGTON
— The Afghan government and the
Taliban agreed on a prisoner exchange that would free American and Australian
professors who were abducted by the insurgents more than three years ago,
officials on both sides said Tuesday.
President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan said Tuesday
that in return, the government would release three senior Taliban figures,
including Anas Haqqani, the younger brother of the Taliban’s military
operations leader.
The exchange — both government and Taliban officials
said Tuesday that the transfer was imminent — would be a major step toward
reopening peace talks between the United States and the insurgents. And some
Afghan officials held out hope that the release would make the Taliban more
likely to agree to an eventual truce.
In a nationally televised address, Mr. Ghani said
the exchange was intended to “facilitate direct peace negotiations.” But the
Taliban have refused to negotiate with the Afghan government, which announced
in October that it would not take part in negotiations with the Taliban unless
a cease-fire had held for at least a month.
The American, Kevin C. King, 63, and the Australian,
Timothy J. Weeks, 50, both professors at the American University of
Afghanistan, apparently were to be released after intensive efforts by the
American special envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, officials said. Mr.
Khalilzad, an Afghan-born American diplomat, once served on the board of the
university where the men taught.
Mr. Ghani did not discuss the whereabouts of the two
professors, who were abducted in Kabul in 2016, except to say that their health
had deteriorated while being held. But it is unlikely that he would publicly
commit to releasing Taliban prisoners unless the Taliban had provided evidence
that professors were alive and had agreed to release them.
Mr. Ghani said the decision had been a “tough but
important decision.”
His administration made it clear to the Taliban that
any continued negotiations required the release of the hostages as a show of
good faith as both sides look to end at least one chapter of the 18-year-old
conflict.
In addition to Anas Haqqani, Mr. Ghani said his
government would release Hafiz Rashid, a senior Taliban commander who had
equipped suicide bombers, chosen their targets and moved them from safe houses
in Pakistan across the border into Afghanistan. Mr. Rashid, a brother of a
member of the Taliban negotiating team in Doha, Qatar, was captured along with
Mr. Haqqani in 2014.
The third Taliban member to be released was
identified by Mr. Ghani as Hajji Mali Khan, a senior commander and an uncle of
the deputy leader of the Taliban.
Taliban officials in the group’s leadership council
said Tuesday that pending the actual exchange, more releases could soon follow
from both sides. Afghan officials did not immediately confirm or deny that
claim.
As part of the negotiations, the Haqqani network’s
main demand was the release of Mr. Haqqani, a young but prominent operative
captured in a Persian Gulf country in 2014 and turned over to the Afghan
government, which sentenced him to death.
Mr. Haqqani is the brother of Sirajuddin Haqqani,
who is the deputy leader of the Taliban and also heads the Haqqani network,
known for conducting suicide bombings.
Though the Taliban and American negotiators had
finalized a peace deal “in principle” in September, the insurgent group
continued attacks across the country. This schism — between diplomatic
assurances and what was happening on the ground — raised serious questions
among American officials, who soon believed that Taliban leadership was either
divided over the deal or could not control their lower-ranking fighters and
commanders.
While some have said those divisions are overplayed,
and that not just the Taliban but both sides of the war were intensifying the
violence, there remains an underlying uncertainty about the Haqqani network’s
support of the negotiations.
Some officials who have argued in favor of trading
Anas Haqqani hope the move would be seen as a dramatic enough concession that
the Haqqani wing would fully consent to scaling back their attacks across
Afghanistan.
The Haqqani network is based in the tribal areas of
Pakistan, which may have played a role in the prisoner negotiations. Mr.
Ghani’s announcement Tuesday came a day after a visit to Kabul by Faiz Hameed,
director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, Pakistan’s military
intelligence service, and Suhail Mahmood, Pakistan’s deputy foreign secretary.
The two professors were abducted in August 2016 by
gunmen while they were traveling in their car. Shortly after they were
kidnapped, Navy SEAL team members tried to rescue them from a remote compound
in eastern Afghanistan. But the commandos missed the hostages by hours,
officials said. In April, the military made another rescue attempt along
Afghanistan’s eastern border with Pakistan but narrowly missed them again,
officials said.
In a 2017 statement, the Taliban said Mr. King had
heart and kidney problems. In a video, one of two that the militants released,
Mr. Weeks pleaded with President Trump to save him: “If we stay here for much
longer, we will be killed. I don’t want to die here.”
Mr. King’s illness was worsening, and he sometimes
lost consciousness, according to the Taliban. “We have tried to treat from him
time to time, but we do not have medical facilities as we are in a war
situation,” the statement said.
Mr. Trump has made freeing American hostages a
priority. The administration has managed to free about 10 hostages held in
captivity overseas, using diplomatic leverage or relying on countries such as
France and the United Arab Emirates to carry out high-risk military raids in
Africa and Yemen. Robert C. O’Brien, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser,
continues to ensure these cases receive a high level of attention. Mr. O’Brien
was previously the State Department’s special presidential envoy for hostage
affairs.
But other high-profile hostages remain intractable
problems for this administration, as they were in previous ones. The White
House has been unable to win the freedom of Robert Levinson, the former F.B.I.
agent and C.I.A. analyst who was abducted in Iran in 2007, or Austin Tice, an
American journalist who disappeared in Syria in 2012.
Another American held hostage, Caitlan Coleman, and
her family were rescued by the Pakistani military in October 2017. She and her
Canadian husband, Joshua Boyle, had been held for five years. The two were
abducted by the Haqqani network while backpacking in Afghanistan. Ms. Coleman
had three children while in captivity, but a fourth apparently died.
Another American, Paul E. Overby Jr., who
disappeared in Afghanistan, is believed to be dead. Mr. Overby, who was 76 at
the time and from Massachusetts, disappeared in Khost Province in May 2014
while trying to interview the leader of the Haqqani network. Mr. Overby had
traveled repeatedly to Afghanistan and had written a book, “Holy Blood,” about
the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Last year, the F.B.I. offered a $1 million reward
for information about Mr. King and Mr. Overby.
Officials are also hoping as part of the peace talks
that the Taliban might be able to provide information about Cydney Mizell, an
aid worker. She was abducted in Kandahar in 2008 as she drove to work, and was
later killed. Her body was never recovered.
Mr. King was born in Norristown, Pa., and grew up in
suburban Philadelphia, a family member said. He attended the University of
Miami, where he wrote for the school newspaper and studied communications. He
later taught in Cambodia, Libya and Iraq. He first worked at the American
University in Kabul in 2008, spending two years teaching English and returned
to the country in 2014.
Adam Goldman reported from Washington and David
Zucchino from Kabul, Afghanistan. Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Fahim Abed and Fatima
Faizi contributed reporting from Kabul, and Taimoor Shah from Kandahar,
Afghanistan.
Follow Adam Goldman on Twitter: @adamgoldmanNYT.
