Episode Timeline
View all episodesUSA Today’s run, before and after September 19, 2022
0:50Now PlayingNavy veteran Mark Frerichs released by Taliban in prisoner swap | USA TODAY
1.5K views
September 19, 2022
1,507
20
8
1.86%
Every word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
0:50Now PlayingThe Taliban released Navy veteran and civilian contractor Mark Frerichs during a prisoner swap after he was imprisoned in Afghanistan in 2020.
RELATEDOne year after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan
President Joe Biden said Monday that the U.S. has secured the release of Mark Frerichs, an American contractor and Navy veteran abducted more than two years ago in Afghanistan. Biden said in a statement that he had spoken to Frerichs' sister and that Frerichs, who was said to be in stable health, would be home soon.
Frerichs was freed after the Biden administration struck a deal with the Taliban that allowed imprisoned drug lord and Taliban ally Haji Bashir Noorzai to return to Afghanistan. Noorzai revealed during a news conference in Kabul that he was part of a prisoner swap for an unnamed American, whom U.S. officials later identified as Frerichs.
Noorzai was in U.S. custody for 17 years after a conviction by a New York court for drug trafficking. In his statement confirming that Frerichs had been released, Biden indirectly acknowledged that the deal involved granting clemency to Noorzai, a member of the Taliban who was sentenced to life in prison for heroin importation, including trafficking large quantities into the United States.
» Subscribe to USA TODAY
» Watch more on this and other topics from USA TODAY
» USA TODAY delivers current local and national news, sports, entertainment, finance, technology, and more through award-winning journalism, photos, videos and VR.
#Navy #Taliban #Afghanistan
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.
