Washington released him after 17 years of detention.. an Afghan exchange deal demanded by the Taliban and sent by an American engineer

KABUL -

The announcement by the White House and the Afghan Taliban government sparked a prisoner exchange deal under which Bashar Noorzai, who is close to the founder of the Taliban movement, was released, in exchange for the release of American engineer Mark Frerichs, who has been detained in Afghanistan for two years;

Questions about the deal and its parties and circumstances.

Afghan Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaki said that the exchange took place at Kabul airport on Monday morning. The Afghan minister added that the release of Bishr Noorzai from Guantanamo Bay represents a new page in Afghan-American relations.

Mottaki also stressed that the Doha agreement is evidence that negotiations are the easiest way to resolve outstanding issues between Kabul and Washington.

Bishr Noorzai (center) with the Minister of Finance in the Taliban government, Hidayatullah Badri (Al-Jazeera)

Who preached Noorzai?

Haji Bishr Noorzai was born in Maiwand District, Kandahar Province, southern Afghanistan, to a wealthy family. His father, Muhammad Isa Noorzai, was a notable of the Noorzai tribe, the most famous Pashtun tribe in the southern states.

Bishr Noorzai was close to the founder and leader of the Taliban movement, Mullah Muhammad Omar.

Given his wealth, he was providing financial support to the movement, including providing 350 four-wheel drive cars to the movement when it was founded in 1994.

A source close to Bishr Noorzai told Al-Jazeera Net that Bishr Noorzai's reputation had spread within a few years, and two American citizens worked with him in managing his business and trade, but his brother Hamid Nourzai was not comfortable with the presence of the Americans next to his brother, and he objected to their presence.

After the fall of the Taliban government in 2001, Haji Bishr Noorzai handed over 40 cars, 15 trucks full of weapons and a number of cruise missiles to the governor of Kandahar province, "Kol Agha Shirazi." After the events of September 11, he met with US intelligence officers in Spin Boldak near the border with Pakistan, and was transferred to the city of Kandahar, where he was detained and interrogated for 6 days by the Americans before being released.

Later, the American intelligence lured him to the United States to provide explanations on the background of his accusation of drug smuggling to the United States, and he was arrested in New York City in 2005, and charged with drug smuggling worth $50 million.

In 2008, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, and his appeal was rejected twice in 2013, and he spent 17 years in American prison, before being released today.

A government source tells Al Jazeera Net that "Norzai made use of his time in prison, memorizing the Holy Qur'an, mastering the English language, and playing sports to maintain his health."

Mark Frerichs has been held in Afghanistan for two years (Associated Press)

Who is the American engineer Mark Frerichs?

Frerichs was born on July 13, 1962, and worked in the US Army as a civil engineer, and visited Afghanistan since 2012 as Director of Logistics Support, and he is a US Navy veteran.

Afghan sources say that Frerichs was kidnapped by Taliban militants in April 2020 in the southeastern province of Khost, along with an Afghan translator, and they took him to an unknown destination, and although US intelligence tracked his cell phone and raided an area near the place of his abduction, they did not find him.

On May 10, 2020, the FBI offered a $1 million reward for information that would help free Frerichs or rescue him.

On the same day, the Taliban said that it had conducted an extensive investigation with its factions and militants to ensure the presence of Frerichs, and it turned out that he was not with them.

But on the first of April 2022, a video was published showing Frerichs appealing to the US authorities to release him, and after negotiations that lasted 6 months, the US and Afghan sides managed to conclude a prisoner exchange deal between them.

An Afghan government source told Al Jazeera Net, "A US delegation came last May to Afghanistan to talk about the release of the American engineer, but the Afghan government denied his presence in it, and then admitted him, but on the condition that a prisoner exchange deal was concluded with the United States, and the name Bishr Noorzai was submitted." .

What happened behind the scenes?

The Taliban demanded the release of Bishr Noorzai in the seventh round of its negotiations with the United States in July 2019, but the matter was postponed due to the cancellation of negotiations with the Taliban movement by former US President Donald Trump.

The writer and political researcher Hikmat Jalil says to Al-Jazeera Net that the deal faced two problems, the first is that the US Constitution does not allow the exchange of prisoners, and the second problem is that Noorzai was imprisoned by a decision of an American court and his release needs the approval of the US Congress or a presidential decision;

So the exchange took a long time.

The United States has raised the issue of the release of citizen Mark Frerichs several times, so that former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke about the issue with the Afghan government during his recent visit to Afghanistan, and the US envoy to Afghanistan Tam West spoke about it during his meeting with Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaki in Doha and Norway.

This is a prisoner exchange deal;

The first with the United States after the Taliban movement came to power, and the third during the past two decades, where the United States and the Taliban exchanged prisoners twice during the presence of American forces in Afghanistan.

The researcher in international relations, Tariq Farhadi, believes that relations between the new Afghan government and the United States cooled down after the assassination of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in the capital, Kabul, and therefore the government agreed to the exchange deal until it achieved some gains from the United States, such as extending the period of exemption for a number of Taliban leaders from the ban. Travel.

The leader of the Taliban movement, Sheikh Hebatullah Akhundzada, was personally following up on the file of the release of Bishr Noorzi, because they belonged to the same tribe that has the lion's share in the current government, and because the leader of the movement was subjected to pressure from his tribe.

A source close to Nourzi told Al Jazeera Net, "The release of Bisher Noorzi will open a new page in the relations between Afghanistan and the United States, and that Nourzi will play an important role in the convergence of views between the two parties."