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An elderly British couple were released by the Taliban this week after eight months in captivity.
Barbie Reynolds, 76, and her husband Peter Reynolds, 80, made their way to Qatar on Friday after months of negotiations involving Qatar, the Taliban, and the U.K.
The couple had lived in Afghanistan for 18 years, where they ran an education charity.
Despite the ordeal, Barbie Reynolds said they would return to Afghanistan if they could. They are both Afghan citizens.
“God is good, as they say in Afghanistan,” she added at the Kabul airport.
Their family had accused the Taliban of mistreating the couple, and urged the government to explain why they had been detained.
Qatar’s minister of state, Mohammed bin Abdulaziz al-Khulaifi, expressed appreciation for the “fruitful cooperation” between the U.K. and the Taliban in facilitating the couple’s release.
The Taliban claimed that the couple had broken Afghan laws without going into detail.
British couple Peter and Barbie Reynolds, who were released from Taliban detention in Afghanistan, rest after disembarking from a plane, in Doha, Qatar. (Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa)
“We are very grateful that at least, today is a very great humanitarian day, that they will be reunited with their family,” said Richard Lindsay, Britain’s special envoy to Afghanistan, highlighting that it was “obviously up to the [Afghanistan] authorities here to determine why they were detained.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer praised Qatar’s crucial involvement, including the emir, His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani, in achieving their release.
The U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan in 2021, leaving the Taliban to return to power.
