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Biden speaks with relatives of Americans held by Taliban, but deal to bring them home still elusive

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Biden speaks with relatives of Americans held by Taliban, but deal to bring them home still elusive
News

News

Biden speaks with relatives of Americans held by Taliban, but deal to bring them home still elusive

2025-01-13 09:59 Last Updated At:10:01

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden spoke Sunday with relatives of three Americans the U.S. government is looking to bring home from Afghanistan, but no agreement has been reached on a deal to get them back, family members said.

Biden's call with family members of Ryan Corbett, George Glezmann and Mahmood Habibi took place in the waning days of his administration as officials try to negotiate a deal that could bring them home in exchange for Muhammad Rahim, one of the remaining detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

Corbett, who had lived in Afghanistan with his family at the time of the 2021 collapse of the U.S.-backed government, was abducted by the Taliban in August 2022 while on a business trip and Glezmann, an airline mechanic from Atlanta, was taken by the Taliban's intelligence services in December 2022 while traveling through the country.

Officials believe the Taliban is still holding both men as well as Habibi, an Afghan American businessman who worked as a contractor for a Kabul-based telecommunications company and also went missing in 2022. The FBI has said that Habibi and his driver were taken along with 29 other employees of the company, but that all except for Habibi and another person have since been freed.

The Taliban has denied that it has Habibi, complicating talks with the U.S. government and the prospect of finalizing a deal.

On the call Sunday, Biden told the families that his administration would not trade Rahim, who has been held at Guantanamo since 2008, unless the Taliban releases Habibi, according to a statement from Habibi's brother, Ahmad Habibi.

“President Biden was very clear in telling us that he would not trade Rahim if the Taliban do not let my brother go,” the statement said. “He said he would not leave him behind. My family is very grateful that he is standing up for my brother.”

Dennis Fitzpatrick, a lawyer acting on behalf of Glezmann's family, expressed dismay at the lack of progress, saying in a statement, “President Biden and his national security adviser are choosing to leave George Glezmann in Afghanistan. A deal is available to bring him home. The White House's inaction in this case is inhumane.”

Ryan Fayhee, a lawyer acting on behalf of Corbett's relatives, said the family was grateful to Biden for the call but also implored him to act on the deal.

“A deal is now on the table and the decision to accept it — as imperfect as it may be — resides exclusively with the President,” Fayhee said in a statement. “Hard decisions make great Presidents, and we hope and believe that President Biden will not let perfection be the enemy of the good when American lives are at stake.”

The White House confirmed the call with the families in a statement in which it said they “discussed the U.S. Government’s continuing efforts to reunite these three Americans with their families. The President emphasized his Administration’s commitment to the cause of bringing home Americans held hostage and wrongfully detained overseas.” A spokesperson did not directly address the complaint from the families.

If a deal is not done before Jan. 20, it would fall to the incoming Trump administration to pick up negotiations, though it's unclear if officials would take a different approach when it comes to releasing a Guantanamo detainee the U.S. government has deemed a danger.

Just 15 men remain at Guantanamo, down from a peak of nearly 800 under former President George W. Bush.

Rahim is one of just three remaining detainees never charged but also never deemed safe for the U.S. to even consider transferring to other countries, as it has done with hundreds of other Muslim detainees brought to Guantanamo but never charged.

The U.S. has described Rahim as a direct adviser, courier and operative for Osama bin Laden and other senior al-Qaida figures and a continuing threat to U.S. national security, despite never charging him or otherwise formally making public any evidence against Rahim in his 17 years at Guantanamo.

Successive U.S. administrations have kept Rahim under wraps to a degree remarkable even for the military-run detention at Guantanamo.

A case-review panel in periodic security assessments has judged him a lasting danger. One typical review in 2019 cited what it said were his “extensive extremist connections that provide a path to re-engagement” if he were ever released. It claimed he had failed to answer questions from the review panel about his past or speak to any change to a more peaceful outlook.

His attorney, James Connell, told a U.N. human rights commission recently that Rahim was being “systematically silenced” by the U.S. Connell claimed to the same panel that a U.S. official had told him “every word Rahim utters on any topic is classified on the basis of national security.”

The Biden administration in September 2022 swapped a convicted Taliban drug lord imprisoned in the U.S. for an American civilian contractor who'd been detained by the Taliban for more than two years.

Associated Press writer Ellen Knickmeyer contributed to this report.

FILE - President Joe Biden speaks from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

FILE - President Joe Biden speaks from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)

Hamas has brushed off President Donald Trump’s threat that “all hell” will break out if it does not release the remaining Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip by Saturday.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said Tuesday that the dozens of hostages would only be returned if all parties remain committed to a ceasefire deal reached last month.

“Trump must remember there is an agreement that must be respected by both parties,” he said, adding that threatening language only complicates matters.

Hamas has threatened to delay the next release of three Israeli hostages, due Saturday, accusing Israel of violating the ceasefire agreement, including by not allowing a surge of tents and shelters into the devastated territory.

While Trump said the ceasefire should be canceled if Hamas doesn’t release all the remaining hostages Saturday, he also said such a decision would be up to Israel.

During the first phase of the ceasefire, Hamas has committed to freeing a total of 33 hostages captured in its Oct. 7, 2023, attack in exchange for Israel releasing nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.

The sides have carried out five swaps since Jan. 19, freeing 21 hostages and over 730 Palestinian prisoners so far. The war could resume in early March if no agreement is reached on the more complicated second phase of the ceasefire, which calls for the return of all remaining hostages and an indefinite extension of the truce.

Here's the latest:

CAIRO — Hamas has brushed off President Donald Trump’s threat that “all hell” will break out if it does not release the remaining Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip by Saturday.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said Tuesday that the dozens of hostages would only be returned if all parties remain committed to a ceasefire deal reached last month.

“Trump must remember there is an agreement that must be respected by both parties. This is the only way to bring back prisoners,” he said.

“The language of threats has no value; it only complicates matters,” he added.

Hamas has threatened to delay the next release of three Israeli hostages planned for Saturday, accusing Israel of violating the ceasefire agreement, including by not allowing a surge of tents and shelters into the devastated territory.

Trump said Monday that the ceasefire should be canceled if Hamas doesn’t release all the remaining hostages it is holding in Gaza by midday on Saturday — though he also said that such a decision would be up to Israel.

The agreement calls for the gradual release of dozens of hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

TEL AVIV, Israel — An Israeli man who was thought to be alive and in Hamas captivity was killed during the 2023 attack and his body taken to Gaza, the military said Tuesday.

Shlomo Mantzur was thought to be the oldest hostage held by the militant group in Gaza and because of his age became a symbol in Israel of the brutality of Hamas’ hostage-taking tactic.

He was 85 at the time of the attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The military said the determination of Mantzur’s death was based on intelligence gathered in recent months.

News of Mantzur’s death comes as Israelis have been outraged over the poor condition of hostages who are being freed under the ceasefire with Hamas. On Tuesday, protesters briefly blocked a main highway calling for more hostages to be freed.

That anger is putting heavy pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to extend the ceasefire, what would allow for more hostages to be freed. More than 70 hostages, nearly half of them said by Israel to be dead, are still held captive in Gaza.

Kibbutz Kissufim, where Mantzur was from, said he was “a father, a grandfather, a true friend and the beating heart” of the community.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim criticized Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip as colonization as the ceasefire with Hamas seemed to falter.

“This is a colonization, a project of colonization,” he said at a news conference Tuesday with visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “How much negotiations can you have when the colonizer has not withdrawn?”

Israel and Hamas are halfway through the six-week first phase of their ceasefire, but Hamas has threatened to delay the next release of hostages because it accused Israel of continuing airstrikes and hindering humanitarian aid and the return of Palestinians to northern Gaza.

Predominantly Muslim Malaysia is a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause and has pushed for a two-state solution.

Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza, and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, territories the Palestinians want for a future state.

“This is also an issue of politics of dispossession. When you rob people’s land, people’s houses, people’s property… therefore there are two issues here we have to resolve. One of course immediate humanitarian assistance, but also a long term just amicable resolution to the problem,” Anwar said.

UNITED NATIONS — U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has called for the extension of a fragile ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, saying a resumption of hostilities “would lead to an immense tragedy.”

He called on the Hamas militant group to continue freeing Israeli hostages after it threatened to delay the next release. Hamas accuses Israel of violating the ceasefire agreement.

“Both sides must fully abide by their commitments,” Guterres said in a statement Tuesday. He also urged the sides to hold serious negotiations over the next phase of the agreement, in which Hamas is to release dozens of remaining hostages abducted in its 2023 attack in exchange for an end to the war.

CAIRO — Egypt’s top diplomat has told U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio that Arab countries reject President Donald Trump’s proposal to take over the Gaza Strip and relocate its Palestinian population.

That’s according to a statement from the Egyptian Foreign Ministry after Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty’s meeting late Monday with Rubio in Washington.

The statement said Abdelatty stressed the importance of accelerating Gaza’s reconstruction while Palestinians remain there.

Abdelatty also stressed the importance of “finding a political horizon leading to a final settlement for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict” in a way that ensures “the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the June 4, 1967 border with East Jerusalem as its capital,” the statement said.

Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three territories for their future state. There is wide international support for a two-state solution to the decadeslong conflict along those lines.

Displaced Palestinians make their way from central Gaza to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, Feb. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Displaced Palestinians make their way from central Gaza to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, Feb. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

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