Who is Mark Frerichs, US Navy veteran Taliban swapped for drug lord?

The United States government has exchanged a prisoner with the Taliban to bring back home Mark Frerichs, a US navy veteran and civilian contractor, who was kidnapped by Taliban allies, the Haqqani network, in 2020. Bashir Noorzai, the Taliban associate released in the exchange, was accused of smuggling heroin worth $50 million into the United States from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The deliberations regarding said exchange had been ongoing since US officials had their meeting with the Taliban at Doha, the capital of Qatar.

Who is Mark Frerichs?

Born on July 13, 1962, Mark Randall Frerichs had disappeared in the Khost province of Afghanistan in 2020. He is a native of Lombard, Illinois. Newsweek had reported the details of Frerichs disappearing in Khost, which falls under the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, an area at the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, after speaking with US officials who had divulged the information on conditions of anonymity.

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The 60-year-old Frerichs had worked in the US Navy as a diver before becoming the managing director of International Logistical Support (ILS). The ILS is itself a US government contractor. Frerichs had been travelling to Afghanistan quite frequently since 2012, and had worked in conflict zones like Sudan and Iraq as a civil engineer in the past decade.

Around a week after the Navy veteran disappeared, US intelligence officials had tracked his phone down to a village near Khost and had even raided the same. The operation was carried out in a joint effort by the Department of State and the Department of Defence along with the FBI, but did not bear any results.

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Charlene Cakora, Frerichs’ sister, had criticized the US government for signing a peace treaty with the Taliban in 2020 without negotiating the release of her brother. On April 1, 2022, the New Yorker reported that it had come across a video “from an unidentified individual in Afghanistan” in which Frerichs was seen pleading to be released. He said in the video, “I’d like to ask the leadership of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, please, release me.”

The prisoner exchange, which finally happened on September 19, was reportedly delayed because of the drone strike that killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.