Afghanistan frees detained US citizen Dennis Coyle as gesture of ‘goodwill’ 

Authorities in Afghanistan have released United States citizen Dennis Coyle, who was detained in the country for more than a year, after a plea from his family.

The country’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that the family of linguist and researcher Coyle had written to the country’s leadership, asking that he be released and pardoned for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr.

“The Supreme Court of the Islamic Emirate deemed his period of detention sufficient and decided on his release,” the ministry said in a statement.

The announcement comes after a meeting of Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, former US Special Envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, the United Arab Emirates Ambassador to Kabul Saif Mohammed al-Ketbi, and a member of Coyle’s family.

The UAE facilitated the release, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, adding that the decision was made on humanitarian grounds and as a gesture of “goodwill”.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also thanked the UAE and Qatar on Tuesday “for their support” in securing Coyle’s release.

“The release is a positive step towards ending the practice of hostage diplomacy,” Rubio wrote in a social media post.

Earlier this month, Rubio designated Afghanistan’s Taliban government as a “state sponsor of wrongful detention”, warning that the country was not safe for US citizens to visit.

“The Taliban needs to release Dennis Coyle, Mahmoud Habibi, and all Americans unjustly detained in Afghanistan now and commit to cease the practice of hostage diplomacy forever,” Rubio said in a statement on March 9.

Coley was detained by the Afghan authorities in January 2025 “while legally working to support Afghan language communities as an academic researcher”, according to the Foley Foundation, a group that advocates for the release of US citizens detained abroad.

He had been held “in near-solitary conditions, requiring permission even to use the bathroom, and without access to adequate medical care”, the group said.

Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry said Coley was held “due to violations of Afghanistan’s applicable laws”, without elaborating.

“Afghanistan does not detain citizens of any country for political purposes but over violations of its laws,” Tuesday’s statement quoted Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi as saying.

Last year, five other US citizens were released in what the Taliban authorities also said was a “goodwill gesture”.