Rubio asked for answers with 2 Americans who were allegedly captured by the Taliban
In his final hours in office, President Joe Biden negotiated a prisoner exchange with the Taliban that freed American citizens Ryan Corbett and William Wallace McKenzie from Taliban custody.
Not included in the deal were American citizens George Glazeman and Mahmoud Habibi.
On Saturday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on X that he was “hearing” that more Americans had been arrested by the Taliban.
“If this is true, we should immediately place a bounty on their top leaders, perhaps even bigger than the one on bin Laden,” Rubio wrote.
2 Americans were released in exchange for a Taliban prisoner
“It’s not serious for the Biden White House at all,” said Dennis Fitzpatrick Glazeman, who is coordinating efforts outside the US government to secure Glazeman’s release.
“President Biden and (former national security adviser) Jake Sullivan decided to release George Glazeman in Kabul without good reason,” Fitzpatrick told Fox News Digital. “We are confident that President Trump’s clear-eyed leadership will free the George family.”
Two American citizens, George Glazeman, left, and Mahmoud Habibi, were not included in the Biden administration’s deal that freed two other Americans from the Taliban. (James Foley Foundation/Getty Images)
Fitzpatrick added that Gleizman, 66, was a “perfectly innocent man. He was a hard-working, blue-collar airline mechanic before his brutal incarceration. He did not deserve to be used as leverage.”
Glazeman has been in custody since December 5, 2022, while traveling to Afghanistan under a Senate resolution seeking his immediate release from July 2024.
The motion alleges that Gleizman’s mental and physical condition was deteriorating as a result of confinement in the nine-foot-square basement. He was allowed only limited calls to his family and suffered from “facial tumors, high blood pressure, severe malnutrition and other health problems” during his imprisonment.
Former President Joe Biden at the White House (Anna Cashier)
While the Taliban admit to arresting Gleizman, they insist they will not arrest Mahmoud Habibi.
Despite banning women from the public in Afghanistan, the Taliban dismissed accusations of discrimination as ‘abser’.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks after the swearing in of Vice President JD Vance in the Office of the Vice President Ceremonies in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus in Washington, DC. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
“I know my brother is still under the control of the Taliban,” Habibi’s brother Ahmed told Fox News Digital of his family. I can’t share much about this because we don’t want to put him or anyone else at risk. The empty idea that the Taliban don’t have him is falling flat.
We have several witnesses who were arrested with him at the GDI headquarters. The Taliban always say they don’t have him and they don’t know who. he is. How do you explain these apparent contradictions?
Ahmed also said, “You know the US government has technical evidence that Mahmoud is in GDI custody long after his arrest.”
Biden’s National Security Council “deemed innocuous the State Department’s efforts to get my brother released” and “blocked[the State Department]from using data on their conversations with the Taliban, even though we told them he would be confronted directly. The Taliban said they had never heard of my brother.”
A top general fighting the Taliban has said Afghanistan has once again become a ‘crossroads of terrorism’.
Neither the State Department nor the National Security Council responded to Fox News Digital’s request to confirm Ahmed’s claim.
Fox News Digital spoke to Taliban spokespersons Zabihullah Mujahid and Suhail Shaheen about Habibi’s arrest and asked what happened to Habibi after Mujahid was arrested by the GDI. Mujahid did not respond. Shaheen directed Fox News Digital to reach out to GDI and said he was unaware of the situation.
The Taliban have been demanding the release of Guantanamo Bay detainee and al Qaeda operative Mohammed Rahim to Americans they believe are in their custody. Ahmad Habibi told CBS News that President Biden assured him in a January 12 phone call that the United States would not release Rahim until the Taliban released Habibi.
Taliban fighters in Kabul, Afghanistan (AP Photo/Ibrahim Norozi)
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The Trump administration could pursue several “lines of effort” to secure the release of Glazeman and Habibi, former deputy chief of staff for digital, Envoy Hugh Duggan, told Fox News Digital.
Duggan said this could include, at one level, “direct military rescue” or “behind-the-scenes diplomacy”.
“To say we’re doing the best we can … understand that it’s not satisfying for a family member, really or anyone, and you always want to hear that you’re continuing to identify what we might be missing, or that there’s a rift opening on the horizon,” Dugan said.
“And we have to realize that this can be another step on our road to recovery, and at any time the line of struggle must be adjusted to accommodate new realities.”