U.S. citizen Faye Hall is photographed after being released Thursday by the Taliban in Kabul, seen in this undated handout photo released by the Qatar Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (AP)
The Taliban released an American citizen, Faye Hall, who was detained in Afghanistan, a former U.S. ambassador said Saturday.
Hall “is now in the care of our friends, the Qataris in Kabul, and will soon be on her way home,” wrote Zalmay Khalilzad, who was a U.S. special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation until 2021 and the former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Her release marks the fourth known relinquishment of U.S. citizens by the Taliban so far this year.
“Thank you for bringing me home, and I’ve never been so proud to be an American citizen,” Hall said in a video celebrating her release, posted by President Donald Trump on Truth Social.
“I just want you to know, all the women in the Afghan jail, they always ask me, ‘When is Trump coming?'” Hall said in the video, addressing Trump. “They are waiting for you to come and set them free … Don’t want to forget all those women are still in jail and don’t have any rights,” she added.
American citizen Faye Hall, just released by the Taliban, is now in the care of our friends, the Qataris in Kabul, and will soon be on her way home. Thank you, #Qatar, for your ongoing and steadfast partnership. #USA #Afghanistan pic.twitter.com/cMSBuaq7qR
— Zalmay Khalilzad (@realZalmayMK) March 29, 2025
The State Department did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Earlier this month, Khalilzad announced the release of another American citizen, George Glezmann, who worked as a Delta Air Lines mechanic and had been detained for two years for unknown reasons. Khalilzad called Glezmann’s release a “goodwill gesture” from the Taliban to Trump and the American people, and praised Trump for making “the freedom and homecoming of Americans held abroad a top priority.
In January, President Joe Biden secured the release of two other Americans, Ryan Corbett and William W. McKenty III, who were let go as the Taliban announced a prisoner swap between the U.S. and Afghanistan and after what Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire), a Foreign Relations Committee ranking member, called “intense behind-the-scene efforts by U.S. officials.”
The Taliban at the time identified one freed Afghan prisoner, Khan Mohammed, who it said was arrested in the Afghan province of Nangarhar nearly two decades ago and was serving a life sentence in California.
Corbett, a father from New York, ran a social enterprise organization that worked with NGOs to help Afghan citizens start their own businesses. He was detained by the Taliban for nearly two and a half years, according to his family, who suspect that he was taken into custody to be used as political leverage.
Last year, members of Congress called for the release of U.S. citizen and civil aviation engineer Mahmood Habibi, who it said “was wrongfully detained by the Taliban.” In a House resolution, officials said that Habibi was arrested in August 2022 because the Taliban “made an assumption” that his employer — a Kabul-based telecommunications company — “might have been involved” in a U.S. drone strike on Kabul that killed an al-Qaeda leader.
Habibi has yet to be released. Last year, in August, the FBI made a public request for any further information about his disappearance.