WASHINGTON: The Biden administration is negotiating with Afghanistan to exchange Americans detained in the country for at least one high-profile prisoner held in Guantanamo Bay with alleged ties to former Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
Representatives of the White House and the US State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the report. Representatives for the Afghan Taliban also did not immediately respond.
US President Joe Biden’s administration is seeking the return of three Americans seized in 2022 — Ryan Corbett, George Glezmann and Mahmood Habibi — in exchange for Muhammad Rahim Al-Afghani, the WSJ reported.
A source familiar with the matter confirmed to Reuters that the Biden administration has been negotiating with the Taliban since at least July on a US proposal to exchange Corbett, Glezmann and Habibi for Rahim.
The Taliban, who deny holding Habibi, countered with an offer to exchange Glezmann and Corbett for Rahim and two others, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Corbett and Habibi were detained in separate incidents in August 2022 a year after the Taliban seized Kabul amid the chaotic US troop withdrawal. Glezmann was detained later in 2022 while visiting as a tourist.
A spokesperson for the National Security Council said they could not confirm the WSJ story, but added that the administration was “working around the clock” to secure the release of the three Americans.
Rahim’s lawyer, James Connell, told Reuters that neither the Biden administration nor the Taliban had informed him or Rahim of the negotiations.
“It does seem important to include Rahim or his representative in the conversation,” said Connell. “As it happens, he is willing to be traded or exchanged.”
Rahim was “the last person brought into the CIA torture program,” said Connell, referring to an agency program instituted after the Sept. 11, 2001, Al Qaeda attacks that used harsh interrogation methods on suspected Islamist militants.
The CIA denies the methods amounted to torture.
A Senate intelligence committee report on the agency’s so-called enhanced interrogation program called Rahim an “Al Qaeda facilitator” and said that he was arrested in Pakistan in June 2007 and “rendered” to the CIA the following month.
He was kept in a secret CIA “black site,” where he was subjected to tough interrogation methods, including extensive sleep deprivation, and then sent to Guantanamo Bay in March 2008, the report said.
The US-Taliban talks have been in motion since July, according to the WSJ, which cited sources who attended a classified House Foreign Affairs Committee briefing last month with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
On Monday, Biden’s administration sent 11 Guantanamo detainees to Oman, reducing the prisoner population at the detention center in Cuba by nearly half as part of its effort to close the facility as the president prepares to leave office Jan. 20.
US seeks prisoner swap with Afghanistan involving Guantanamo detainee arrested in Pakistan — media
https://arab.news/5zbd3
US seeks prisoner swap with Afghanistan involving Guantanamo detainee arrested in Pakistan — media
- Outgoing US administration seeks to bring back three Americans in exchange for Muhammad Rahim Al-Afghani
- Al-Aghani reportedly had ties with bin Laden and was the last person brought to the CIA interrogation program
Pakistan PM orders accelerated privatization of power sector to tackle losses
- Tenders to be issued for privatization of three major electricity distribution firms, PMO says
- Sharif says Pakistan to develop battery energy storage through public-private partnerships
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s prime minister on Monday directed the government to speed up privatization of state-owned power companies and improve electricity infrastructure nationwide, as authorities try to address deep-rooted losses and inefficiencies in the energy sector that have weighed on the economy and public finances.
Pakistan’s electricity system has long struggled with financial distress caused by a combination of factors including theft of power, inefficient collection of bills, high costs of generating electricity and a large burden of unpaid obligations known as “circular debt.” In the first quarter of the current financial year, government-owned distribution companies recorded losses of about Rs171 billion ($611 million) due to poor bill recovery and operational inefficiencies, official documents show. Circular debt in the broader power sector stood at around Rs1.66 trillion ($5.9 billion) in mid-2025, a sharp decline from past peaks but still a major fiscal drain.
Efforts to contain these losses have been a focus of Pakistan’s economic reform program with the International Monetary Fund, which has urged structural changes in the energy sector as part of financing conditions. Previous government initiatives have included signing a $4.5 billion financing facility with local banks to ease power sector debt and reducing retail electricity tariffs to support economic recovery.
“Electricity sector privatization and market-based competition is the sustainable solution to the country’s energy problems,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said at a meeting reviewing the roadmap for power sector reforms, according to a statement from the prime minister’s office.
The meeting reviewed progress on privatization and infrastructure projects. Officials said tenders for modernizing one of Pakistan’s oldest operational hubs, Rohri Railway Station, will be issued soon and that the Ghazi Barotha to Faisalabad transmission line, designed to improve long-distance transmission of electricity, is in the initial approval stages. While not all power-sector decisions were detailed publicly, the government emphasized expanding private sector participation and completing priority projects to strengthen the electricity grid.
In another key development, the prime minister endorsed plans to begin work on a battery energy storage system with participation from private investors to help manage fluctuations in supply and demand, particularly as renewable energy sources such as solar and wind take a growing role in generation. Officials said the concept clearance for the storage system has been approved and feasibility studies are underway.
Government briefing documents also outlined steps toward shifting some electricity plants from imported coal to locally mined Thar coal, where a railway line expansion is underway to support transport of fuel, potentially lowering costs and import dependence in the long term.
State authorities also pledged to address safety by converting unmanned railway crossings to staffed ones and to strengthen food safety inspections at stations, underscoring broader infrastructure and service improvements connected to energy and transport priorities.
