Biden called the families of 3 Americans held by the Taliban to tell them he did not reach an agreement to release them.

In a roughly 30-minute phone call Sunday afternoon, President Biden delivered difficult news to the families of three Americans held by the Taliban. He did not have an agreement with the Taliban to free his loved ones from captivity, despite what American officials described to CBS News as a significant offer that the United States had extended in Doha days earlier. The United States considers Ryan Corbett and George Glezmann wrongly detained by the Taliban, and describes Mahmood Habibi, who has dual American and Afghan citizenship, as “unjustly held” since 2022.

Ahmad Shah Habibi, the brother of Mahmood Habibi, told CBS News that during the conversation, Mr. Biden clarified that he did not accept the Taliban’s demand that the United States release Muhammed Rahim al Afghani, a Guantanamo detainee Bay, unless the Taliban, now the government of Afghanistan, also release Mahmood. A spokesman for the NSC declined to respond to a CBS inquiry about this specific request.

Mahmood Habibi disappeared in Afghanistan in 2022, and the Taliban denied kidnapping him. In a public notice published by the FBI in August 2024, the agency said it “believed” that Habibi was taken by the Taliban military or security forces and “has not been heard from since his disappearance.” The FBI said in its notice that Habibi was working as a contractor for a telecommunications company based in Kabul when he disappeared.

The Taliban still say they do not have Habibi in custody.

“No, we don’t have it,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told CBS News on Monday.

Asked if Mahmoud had disappeared in Afghanistan, Mujahid said: “It’s not clear yet, because we didn’t know about it before.”

Ahmad Habibi told CBS News: “My family has every confidence that my brother is alive. There are things that neither we nor the American government can say publicly, but Mahmood’s case is different from the other two Americans” .

“We know that other families are desperate to get their loved ones home and I told the president that we want them home too,” added Ahmad Habibi. “But anyone who speculated that my brother is dead is just fed into the Taliban. We are grateful that President Biden has committed not to leave Mahmood,” and said that national security adviser Jake Sullivan had also made similar assurances.

The FBI declined to comment.

Corbettwho is fluent in Pashto, was working for local non-governmental organizations before starting a microloan and consultancy in Kabul when he was arrested with three associates – a German and two Afghans – during a business trip to the north of the Afghanistan in 2022.

Glezmann is an Atlanta native who was arrested while on a tourist visit in December 2022.

Ryan Corbett’s family is publicly calling on Mr. Biden to consider a deal to bring him and Glezmann home.

“We hope that President Biden will have the courage to take the agreement before him, since the lives of many Americans rest on his shoulders,” Erin Pelton, a spokeswoman for the Corbett family, told CBS News.

Corbett’s wife, Anna Corbett, described the call with the president during an appearance on Fox News on Monday.

“He was very kind and empathetic, but what I heard him say is he’s not bringing Ryan home, and that was just devastating,” Anna Corbett said. She apologized to Mr. Biden for refusing to accept the Taliban’s terms for a deal. “It’s not taken and it’s incredibly overwhelming for our family.”

She has launched a public campaign in recent days to urge the incoming administration to press for her husband’s release, and has traveled to President-elect Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago residence in hopes of making a request to Trump in person. Neither Mr. Biden nor Mr. Trump have yet met with her.

Anna Corbett told Fox News that Trump sent incoming national security adviser and current Florida representative Mike Waltz to meet with her. She said she spent more than an hour listening to her family’s story. She expressed frustration that it took more than a year to have a similar meeting with the current national security adviser, Jake Sullivan.

The Taliban have demanded that the United States release Muhammed Rahim al-Afghani, who is being held in indefinite martial law detention at Guantanamo Bay. A source familiar with his case said the US intelligence community and the Pentagon opposed Rahim’s release and could not guarantee he no longer posed a threat to the United States. to exchange

Rahim was captured in Pakistan in 2007 by the CIA and was the last detainee sent to Guantanamo prison by the Bush administration in 2008. He has never been charged with war crimes, but the periodic review board he considered his continued detention a national security. necessity I know Intelligence Profile 2016 describes him as a courier for al Qaeda.

In its statement acknowledging the phone call, the White House also noted that Mr. Biden was able to bring home American citizens who had been detained before the United States’ exit from Afghanistan in 2021. Corbett, Glezmann and Habibi was arrested after traveling to Afghanistan later. the return to power of the Taliban. What you do ascendancy of the Taliban followed a diplomatic agreement negotiated by the The Trump administration for the withdrawal of American troops and a surprisingly strong Taliban military offensive that caught the Biden administration off guard, leading to a hasty and chaotic. Evacuation of the United States. Not wanting to be without US troops, NATO forces have also left.

The United States has not officially recognized the Taliban, with their appalling human rights record, as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, but has been in contact with their leaders through American agencies and even through the Qatari government. Last weekend in Doha, special presidential envoy Roger Carstens and NSC official Jen Daskal pressed for a deal with the Taliban to free the Americans.

A US official described the Doha meetings as unsuccessful, but declined to detail what other individuals the Biden administration was willing to offer to the Taliban as part of a potential trade. The White House described Biden’s efforts as continuing until the end of his term.

Mr. Biden has devoted much of his career to foreign policy, and that part of his legacy it is very important to him. In a speech on Monday at the State Department, the president will describe the chaotic US exit from Afghanistan, perhaps his biggest foreign policy failure, as having successfully ended the longest war in the history of Afghanistan. America.

contributed to this report.

Margaret Brennan

Margaret Brennan is moderator of “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.” He is also the Network’s foreign affairs correspondent based in Washington, D.C. and a contributing correspondent for “60 Minutes.”