An American citizen and a #US resident have been freed from #Taliban detention in #Afghanistan, the State Department says, and one of the pair identified themselves as brothers who were engaged in humanitarian work when they were detained.https://t.co/YhU2MlaDpl
— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) April 2, 2022
An American and a US resident have been freed from Taliban
...Arabic for
students...
detention in Afghanistan, the State Department said on Friday, and one of the pair identified themselves as brothers who were engaged in humanitarian work when they were detained.
Saifullah Rauf, the US citizen and US Navy reservist, and Anees Khalil, a US green card-holder, were "unjustly detained" and are in Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...awaiting travel to the United States, State Department Spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.
The pair’s detention was kept extremely quiet. The most prominent American known to be in Taliban custody is Mark Frerichs who was kidnapped in January 2020.
A statement posted on Twitter by Human First Coalition, a US private group involved in evacuating at-risk Afghans, identified Rauf as its president.
In the statement, Rauf said he and his brother "were engaged in humanitarian work in Afghanistan when we were taken into Taliban custody" on Dec. 18.
They were held for 105 days, he said.
"Our understanding is that this exceptionally unfortunate situation arose due to a misunderstanding; we did nothing wrong," he continued without elaborating.
Rauf thanked those involved in helping to free the pair, including US officials, their family, Qatar, the British government and his organization.
The US Navy said that Rauf is a reserve hospital corpsman who enlisted in March 2017 and whose last posting was in April 2021 at the medical facility at Joint Base Andrews, outside Washington.