Taliban Releases American Hostage in Exchange for Afghan Drug Trafficker

Mark Frerichs, a U.S. veteran and civilian contractor held more than two years in Afghanistan by the Taliban, in a file photo. Charlene Cakora via AP

The Taliban has released an American engineer they'd kept captive since 2020 in exchange for a Taliban-linked Afghan tribal leader, who was serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison on heroin trafficking charges.

Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said the prisoner exchange between American hostage Mark Frerichs and Taliban ally Bashir Noorzai took place at the Kabul airport on Monday, according to Reuters.