On Friday, a British couple who had been detained in Afghanistan for almost seven months landed in Doha, the capital of Qatar, following their release following high-level negotiations between the Taliban, Qatar, and the UK. For over seven months, Peter and Barbie Reynolds, who are 80 and 76 years old, respectively, were detained in Afghanistan on unspecified allegations.
The two had been in the country for eighteen years and operated a training and education organization in the central province of Bamiyan. Even after the Taliban took control of the country in 2021 with a lightning onslaught, they decided to stay in Afghanistan. Barbie Reynolds remarked, “God is good, as they say in Afghanistan,” when she landed at Kabul International Airport to take a flight out of the nation.
Sarah Entwistle, the couple’s daughter, rushed to her parents. After giving them both a hug, she took her father’s hand and escorted him into the terminal. After her parents’ “incomprehensible detention by the Taliban,” Entwistle stated the family was ecstatic to see them back and was relieved. In the UK, the Reynolds family continually demanded the couple’s release, alleging that they were being mistreated in prison and detained on unspecified charges.
In a statement posted on X, Abdul Qahar Balkhi, a spokesman for the Taliban government’s Foreign Ministry, said that the pair “violated Afghan law” and were freed from jail on Friday following a court hearing.
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