Taliban release British couple held for months in Afghanistan

The Taliban released on Friday a British couple held in Afghanistan for more than seven months on undisclosed charges, likely part of a wider effort to get their government recognised internationally years after taking power.

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The case of Peter and Barbie Reynolds, aged 80 and 76, underlined the concerns of the West over the actions of the Taliban since they overthrew the country’s US-backed government in a 2021 lightning offensive. The Reynolds lived in Afghanistan for 18 years and ran an education and training organisation in the country’s central province of Bamiyan, choosing to remain in the country after the Taliban seized power.

Qatar, which mediated talks between the US and the Taliban before the American withdrawal, helped in releasing the Reynolds.

The couple left Afghanistan on Friday.

"God is good, as they say in Afghanistan," Barbie Reynolds said after she arrived at Kabul International Airport to fly out of the country.

Mohammed Bin Abdulaziz Al Khulaifi, Qatar’s minister of state at the Foreign Ministry, thanked the United Kingdom and Afghanistan's interim Taliban government “for the fruitful cooperation” in freeing the Reynolds.