WASHINGTON: The Biden administration is negotiating with Afghanistan to exchange Americans detained in the country for at least one high-ranking prisoner held at Guantanamo Bay with alleged ties to former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. Representatives for the White House and the US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report. Representatives of the Afghan Taliban also did not immediately respond. US President Joe Biden’s administration is seeking the return of three Americans detained in 2022 – Ryan Corbett, George Glezmann and Mahmood Habibi – in exchange for Muhammad Rahim al-Afghani, the WSJ reported. Corbett and Habibi were detained in separate incidents in August 2022, a year after the Taliban seized Kabul amid a chaotic US withdrawal. Glezmann was detained later in 2022 while visiting as a tourist. Afghani is an Afghan described as a high-ranking al-Qaeda operative who was transferred to Guantánamo from CIA custody in 2008. Talks have been in motion since July, according to the WSJ, which cited sources who attended a secret House Foreign Affairs Committee briefing with White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan last month. The news comes after the Biden administration sent 11 Guantanamo detainees to Oman on Monday, cutting the inmate population at the detention center in Cuba by nearly half as part of its efforts to close the facility as the president prepares to leave office in January. 20. “The United States appreciates the willingness of the Government of Oman and other partners to support continued U.S. efforts to responsibly reduce the number of detainees and ultimately close the Guantánamo facility,” the U.S. military said in a statement.
