George Glezmann was detained while touring the country after the Taliban won the war. Secretary of State Marco Rubio thanked Qatar for helping secure his release.
The Taliban on Thursday released George Glezman, an American held in Afghanistan since 2022, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.
Mr. Glezmann, an Atlanta native, was a Delta Air Lines mechanic who was detained during a tourist visit to Afghanistan in December 2022. The State Department formally found him to be wrongfully detained.
Mr. Glezmann boarded a Qatari plane in Kabul, the Afghan capital, to fly to Doha, Qatar, with U.S. and Qatari officials on Thursday. Qatar has close ties to the ruling Taliban government in Afghanistan and hosted talks between it and U.S. officials. Talks between the first Trump administration and the Taliban insurgents on the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan took place in Doha.
In his announcement of Mr. Glezman’s release, Mr. Rubio thanked the Qatari government for its assistance. Adam Boehler, whom President Trump chose as his special envoy for hostage matters, took part in the negotiations with the Taliban.
The meeting in Kabul between American and Taliban officials was the first known face-to-face contact of any significance between the two governments since Mr. Trump took office in January. Mr. Boehler was accompanied on the trip by Zalmay Khalilzad, a special envoy for Afghanistan reconciliation in the first Trump administration and a former ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the United Nations.
Mr. Boehler arrived at the meeting in Kabul wearing a gray jacket, a black sweater and a black baseball cap. Mr. Khalilzad wore a dark blue suit and a purple and red floral tie. They sat at a wooden table across from Amir Khan Muttaqi, Afghanistan’s foreign minister, and other Afghan officials, photographs of the meeting showed.
