On a summer morning in 2022, Afghan men blindfolded a U.S.-Afghan citizen on a street of Kabul, the country’s capital, and drove him away in his own S.U.V. to an unknown location.
The men said they were from the Taliban’s intelligence services, according to three witnesses whose statements were obtained by The New York Times. The officers stormed the apartment that the U.S.-Afghan citizen, Mahmood Shah Habibi, had just left. They seized his laptop, some books and paperwork, and departed.
It was the last time Mr. Habibi was seen in public. His arrest and unknown whereabouts remain at the center of tensions between the Trump administration, which has made the release of U.S. citizens held abroad a priority, and a Taliban government seeking to forge diplomatic and economic ties with the United States.
Afghan officials deny holding Mr. Habibi, or even knowing where he is. They have not responded to questions from the Times about his arrest.
But the details of his detention — recollected in the witness statements shared with the U.S. State Department, the National Security Council and the Afghan authorities — support the claim made by American officials that the Taliban arrested him, at least.
At least five cars carrying Afghan intelligence officers blocked the street leading to the apartment building where Mr. Habibi lived, and which he had just left, according to the statements. The men stopped Mr. Habibi as he was about to drive to his office and later searched the apartment.
Mr. Habibi disappeared about a week after the C.I.A. — in a 2022 strike in Kabul — killed Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s leader and a key plotter of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. Whether he is alive or not remains unclear.
Mr. Habibi worked as a contractor for Asia Consultancy Group, a Kabul-based telecommunications company, according to the F.B.I. He and his driver were detained with 29 other employees of the firm, all of whom, except one, have since been freed. . U.S. officials would not discuss whether Mr. Habibi had a role in the strike, nor on the nature of his or his colleagues’ work. But his father, Ahmadullah, and brother, Ahmad, have denied that he was involved.
“The Taliban saying they never heard of my brother is contradicted by witness statements, technical data and other information that shows without a doubt that they both arrested him and held him with 30 other colleagues at G.D.I. headquarters,” said Ahmad Habibi, referring to the initials for Afghanistan’s intelligence agency.
The Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said in a text message on Wednesday, “The Islamic Emirate doesn’t have Mahmood Shah Habibi,” using the Taliban’s formal name for the Afghan government.
In an interview with the Times this month, Mr. Mujahid said that Afghanistan was ready to release two U.S. prisoners — identified by U.S. officials as Dennis Walter Coyle, a U.S. citizen from Colorado held since last January, and Polynesis Jackson, a former U.S. Army soldier whose reasons for being in the country remain murky.
In exchange, Mr. Mujahid said the Taliban wanted the release of the last Afghan held at Guantánamo Bay, Muhammad Rahim, who is accused by the C.I.A. of having been a courier and translator to Osama Bin Laden within Al Qaeda. Mr. Rahim, 60, has never been charged.
Discussing Mr. Habibi’s fate or whereabouts is off the table as long as Mr. Rahim is not freed, said an Afghan official with direct knowledge of the negotiations who insisted on anonymity to discuss ongoing release efforts.
According to a direct witness of the arrest, the Taliban blindfolded Mr. Habibi in the back of his own white S.U.V. before driving him away. “I asked one of the guys who they were, and he said they are G.D.I. Mujahideen,” one witness said in a statement, referring to the term for fighters used by the Taliban.
Another group of intelligence officers from G.D.I. later stormed Mr. Habibi’s apartment, took Mr. Habibi’s laptop, some books and paperwork, according to the witnesses’ statement.
One of the men who stormed the apartment and introduced himself as the G.D.I. unit’s leader told an eyewitness that Mr. Habibi was a U.S. spy and that G.D.I. had been tracking him for months.
Blindfolded, Mr. Habibi and a co-worker were driven to a facility where they were interrogated about the C.I.A. strike on Mr. al-Zawahri, according to the co-worker’s statement.
At least five U.S. prisoners have been freed from Afghanistan over the past year, but negotiations for the release of remaining detainees have stalled in recent months. The Trump administration says Mr. Rahim’s release is off the table and has accused the Taliban of hostage diplomacy.
Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Afghan foreign minister, denied the accusations in an interview with The Times. He instead called on the Trump administration to reopen the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and develop trade with Afghanistan — including through the country’s vast reserves of copper, aluminum and rare earth minerals.
A participant in the negotiations, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss release efforts, said the Trump administration would not consider any further public engagement with the Taliban until all remaining U.S. citizens, including Mr. Habibi, are freed.
Elian Peltier is an international correspondent for The Times, covering Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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