The Taliban says it has released American citizen Dennis Coyle after a year in prison

The Taliban government in Afghanistan announced on Tuesday that it would release a US citizen who had been imprisoned since January 2025.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that he agreed to be released after a letter from his family Dennis Coyle they will be “forgiven and released” on Eid.

A Taliban official who participated in the prisoner talks told CBS News that the Taliban and the US have been in talks since last week of February.

Coyle, a 64-year-old academic from Colorado, was forcibly taken from his apartment in Kabul by the Taliban. His capture came six days after another American, Ryan Corbett, died released at the beginning of President Trump’s second term.

Coyle, who spent nearly two decades in Afghanistan conducting language research, was being held by the Taliban’s General Directorate of Intelligence in solitary confinement without charge, according to his family. Coyle’s capture shortly after Corbett’s release shows the continued danger Americans face in Afghanistan, even those with long-standing legal status and deep ties to local communities.

Last June, the US government officially designated Coyle as wrongfully detained under the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery Act and the Hostage Accountability Act, a situation that opens up the government’s chosen tools and raises the importance of efforts to secure his release.

The United States does not recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan and does not have diplomatic ties to the country, complicating the release talks that are often facilitated by Qatar as a mediator on behalf of the US.

The Biden administration held talks with the Taliban to exchange Americans held in Afghanistan for Muhammad Rahim al Afghani, a Guantanamo Bay detainee suspected of working with Osama bin Laden, but the talks ultimately failed. US officials have proposed releasing Rahim in exchange for George Glezmann, Ryan Corbett and Afghan-American Mahmoud Habibi, who was kidnapped in 2022. The Taliban protested that they wanted Rahim and two others while denying that they had captured Habibi.

A Taliban official who spoke to CBS News on Tuesday said Rahim “should have been released by now, but unfortunately the US side has not done anything about its previous promises and commitments.”

With the help of Qatari negotiators, Corbett and another American, William McKenty, were released last January in exchange for a Taliban figure serving a life sentence on drug-trafficking charges. Glezmann and another one American, Faye Hall, was released in March, a fifth American, Amir Amiri, was followed released last September.

The State Department did is given a $5 million reward for information leading to Habibi’s return.