After failing to obtain the release of three U.S. prisoners from Taliban custody using the ‘carrot’ method, U.S. leaders suddenly appear prepared to deploy the stick.
On Feb. 13, Senior Director for Counterterrorism on the National Security Council Sebastian Gorka noted on X, “we will not rest until Dennis Coyle and Mahmood Habibi come home.” This was a stark change from his statement last August that the Taliban were “moderately cooperative counterterrorism partners.”
It might reflect a toughening of administration policy toward the Taliban.
On Feb. 12, U.S. delegates drafted a U.N. Security Council resolution to extend the mandate of the U.N. sanctions monitoring team for an additional year. The decision will maintain sanctions, which include travel bans, arms embargoes, and asset freezes, against Taliban entities. Though some Taliban leaders had previously received travel ban exemptions, not all exemptions were reportedly renewed. Explaining this resolution, the United States cited the Taliban’s treatment of women and girls, its human rights violations, and its “unacceptable use of hostage-taking as a leverage point against the United States and other nations.”
Congress is also taking action.
In January, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) introduced the No Tax Dollars for Terrorists Act, which would force the State Department to “develop and implement a strategy to discourage foreign countries and nongovernmental organizations from providing financial or material support to the Taliban.” The act is controversial, however. While the Taliban are known to divert foreign aid entering their country, 40% of Afghans are facing acute levels of hunger and are in desperate need of aid.
Regardless, the efforts to push back on a regime that supports terrorism, grievously harms its people, and uses U.S. citizens as bargaining chips could be further strengthened. Both Congress and the White House already possess another array of tools they could use to compel the Taliban without harming the Afghan people.
On Sept. 5, 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order “strengthen[ing] efforts to protect U.S. nationals from wrongful detention aboard.” The order gives the State Department authority to designate a foreign country as a State Sponsor of Wrongful Detention and thereby can level sanctions, restrict assistance and exports, and impose travel restrictions for U.S. passport holders. Congress has passed a similar bill, the Countering Wrongful Detention Act of 2025. Designating the Taliban as a State Sponsor of Wrongful Detention and unleashing punishments with real teeth may get the ball rolling on obtaining the release of Jackson and Coyle.
Bringing Habibi home is likely to prove more difficult. The Taliban continue to claim they are not aware of Habibi’s whereabouts despite State Department officials telling the New York Times that they “know the Taliban abducted and detained Mahmood Habibi over three years ago.”
As the Washington Examiner has previously reported, Habibi was arrested on Aug. 10, 2022, by the Taliban’s General Directorate of Intelligence with 30 of his Asia Consultancy Group colleagues. The arrests were apparently based on suspicions that Habibi and co. were involved in the July 22, 2022, killing of Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul. Habibi’s phone was turned on inside GDI headquarters as recently as August 2023.
For the Americans known to be in Taliban custody, life is likely bleak. Prior detainees faced harsh conditions, including being held in basements without access to sunlight, and developed serious health conditions. British couple Barbie and Paul Reynolds, who were released from seven-and-a-half months of Taliban custody in September, recently described their imprisonment. Held in a total of about 10 different prisons, including the maximum security facility Pol-e Charkhi, the couple were never given a reason for their detention. At one point, they said they believed they might be executed. Barbie said that she was held in a women’s prison block with 240 inmates and seven working toilets. When she was reunited with her husband, Paul said, “She was no longer a 76 year old, she was in her 90s.”
OBAMA IS IN NO POSITION TO LECTURE US ABOUT DECENCY
The U.S. should employ the full arsenal at its disposal to obtain their release.
Still, we cannot forget that the pain of our withdrawal extends beyond our citizens suffering in Taliban prisons. The U.S. must stand firm against formalizing relations with a group that routinely murders U.S. allies and pursues an abhorrent system of gender persecution.