WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES – The Chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCaul, called for the immediate release of Ryan Corbett, an American citizen taken hostage by the Taliban since August 2022.
In a statement on Wednesday, March 27, Mr. McCaul criticized the Biden administration for not doing enough to secure Ryan’s release despite his deteriorating health condition in Taliban prison.
“The Biden administration must stop ignoring requests to meet with Ryan Corbett’s family and take urgent action to secure his release from the Taliban,” McCaul said.
“Ryan’s worsening condition is a tragic yet predictable consequence of the administration’s disastrous withdrawal – Americans becoming collateral damage and victims of the Taliban monsters,” he added, emphasizing that Ryan must be released immediately.
According to a family member, Ryan Corbett, 42, was arrested by the Taliban, along with his German colleague and two Afghan colleagues, during a business trip to Afghanistan on August 10, 2022.
Earlier, members of the US Congress revealed that Mr. Ryan moved with his family to Afghanistan in 2010 to assist the Afghan people. He left the country when the previous government collapsed in August 2021.
In a statement, they said that in 2017, Ryan Corbett founded “Bloom Afghanistan” to provide consulting and microloans to Afghan small businesses to help build a self-sustaining local economy of Afghan small businesses.
“Ryan Corbett is being held in a 9-foot by 9-foot cell with two other detainees, and has been held in solitary confinement for months at a time,” part of the statement reads.
Members of the US Congress also called for the immediate and unconditional release of Mr. Ryan while condemning the Taliban’s “wrongful detention” of US citizens for political gain.
While the Taliban has not yet commented on Mr. Ryan’s detention, and his fate remains unknown, the regime has a history of holding Westerners hostage to gain political advantage and secure prisoner exchanges.
last month, the Al Arabiya news agency reported that the US and the Taliban had reached an agreement to release an aide of the former Al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, in exchange for the release of Ryan Corbett.
However, neither US officials nor the Taliban have publicly disclosed the number of American citizens detained by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
US officials say that the detention of American citizens by the Taliban is a significant obstacle to positive engagement between Washington and the ruling regime in Afghanistan.
During a press briefing on February 28, Matthew Miller, the spokesperson for the US Department of State, stated that US officials have been “continuously and consistently” urging the Taliban for the immediate and unconditional release of Americans detained in Afghanistan.
Mr. Miler emphasized that the US special envoy for Afghanistan, Thomas West, engaged in discussions with Taliban authorities regarding the Americans detained in Taliban custody.
“I want to say that the security of American citizens is our priority, not only in this conversation but also in previous conversations, we emphasized the freedom of American citizens in Afghanistan. We discussed this issue with the leaders of the Taliban,” he said.
