The Taliban have freed two Americans in detention in Afghanistan, the State Department said Tuesday, on the same day that the militant regime faced condemnation for banning women at universities.
“This, we understand, to have been a goodwill gesture on the part of the Taliban. This was not part of any swap of prisoners or detainees. There was no money that exchanged hands,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.
The two Americans were released to Qatar, which has played a key role supporting US interests in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover.
Price said that confidentiality rules forbade him from offering more details on the two Americans.
CNN reported that one of them was Ivor Shearer, a filmmaker arrested in August with his Afghan producer -- whose fate is unclear -- while filming the site of a US drone attack that killed Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. |