Pressed Taliban to free American, envoy says

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. — The U.S. envoy for Afghanistan reconciliation says he has called for the release of an American captured by Taliban-linked militants in discussions with Taliban leaders as continued violence threatens to scuttle a peace deal to end America’s longest war.

In a series of tweets from his official account on Thursday, Zalmay Khalilzad said he pressed Taliban leaders during an overnight meeting in Doha, Qatar, to secure the release of Mark Frerichs, a Navy veteran turned contractor, who was abducted by militants in late January.

The tweets by Khalilzad mark the first public statement about the capture from a Trump administration official. They come on the heels of an investigation by The Associated Press last week that noted there had been no public indications that Frerichs has been part of the peace negotiations between the United States and the Taliban.

Khalilzad could not be reached by the AP for comment. The State Department also did not respond to a request for comment.

American officials believe Frerichs, of Lombard, Ill., was captured by members of the Haqqani network, a militant group aligned with the Taliban in Afghanistan and designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the Obama administration in 2012.

While little is known about the circumstances of how the 57-year-old Frerichs was abducted, U.S. officials believe he was held for a time in Khost, an eastern province along the border with Pakistan and its so-called tribal regions. The mountainous area has historically been a haven for Taliban and al-Qaida militants. The AP investigation revealed how Navy SEALs and U.S. intelligence agencies tried to gather information that would lead them to Frerichs’ recovery but the trail went cold.

“The Taliban kidnapped my brother in January. In February, the U.S. signed a peace deal with the Taliban. My brother wasn’t part of the deal,” Charlene Cakora, one of Frerichs’ sisters, said in a statement provided to the AP last week. “Now we are arranging for the Taliban and Afghan government to exchange thousands of prisoners, why can’t we make an American hostage be one of them?”

On Friday, the FBI released a kidnapping poster for Frerichs in multiple languages. The poster said he was last seen wearing “black boots, green tactical pants, a green jacket with a hood, and a silver scarf.”

While the Taliban-linked Haqqanis are known to carry out assassinations and kidnappings for ransom, there’s uncertainty within the rank and file over who exactly has abducted Frerichs and where he is. Since his capture, no formal demands are known to have been made, and no group is known to have claimed responsibility for his abduction.