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The American academic Dennis Coyle, 64 years old and a resident of Pueblo, Colorado, was released by the Taliban after 422 days of detention without formal charges in Kabul.
The release occurred in the presence of representatives from the Taliban Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Afghanistan and a U.S. representative for detainee matters.
The Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the news expressing gratitude for the support from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
At the beginning of this month, I met Molly, Amy, and Patti, who asked me for help to free their brother Dennis Coyle, who was detained in Afghanistan. Today, Dennis is on his way home. We thank the United Arab Emirates and Qatar for their support. His release represents a positive step toward the end of hostage diplomacy, he stated on X.
This Wednesday, Coyle arrived in Texas, where his family was waiting for him.
Coyle had been kidnapped on January 27, 2025 by the Taliban General Intelligence Directorate in his apartment in Kabul while conducting linguistic research on Afghan communities, a work to which he had dedicated almost two decades of his life in service to the Afghan people.
During his captivity, he was kept in conditions of almost solitary confinement, without adequate access to medical care and having to ask for permission even to use the bathroom.
The U.S. State Department had officially declared him unjustly detained in June 2025, under the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Accountability Act.
The Taliban Foreign Ministry justified the release as a gesture of "humanitarian sympathy and goodwill" on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan, and noted that the Afghan Supreme Court deemed the detention period "sufficient."
This is not the first time the Taliban have used this strategy: in March 2025, they released George Glezmann in a similar gesture of supposed goodwill.
The U.S. administration had hardened its stance towards Kabul months earlier. In March 2026, Rubio designated Afghanistan as a sponsor of unjust detentions, a diplomatic pressure measure aimed at accelerating the release of American citizens held in the country.
Despite the good news, the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs reminded that there are still Americans detained in Afghanistan, including Paul Overby, a writer who has been missing since 2014, and Mahmood Habibi, and called for their immediate release.
"Afghanistan released Coyle based on humanitarian sympathy and goodwill, and believes that such steps can further strengthen the atmosphere of trust between the countries," the Taliban statement noted.
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