RASC News Agency: The family of Peter and Barbie Reynolds, a British couple detained by the Taliban, has urged UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy to publicly denounce the group for their arrest and demand their immediate release. Peter Reynolds, 79, and his wife, Barbie, 75, were apprehended by the Taliban in February while returning home from Bamiyan. Meanwhile, Fay Hall, an American citizen detained alongside them, was released last week as part of an agreement between the U.S. government and the Taliban. Sarah Entwistle, the couple’s daughter, told The Telegraph: “If U.S. officials managed to secure Ms. Hall’s release, the UK government must be able to do the same for my parents.” She called on Foreign Secretary Lammy to issue a public statement condemning the Taliban for detaining her parents without any criminal charges.
A spokesperson for the UK Foreign Office reaffirmed the government’s commitment to supporting the families of British dual nationals detained in Afghanistan. The Reynolds couple was taken into custody by the Taliban’s Ministry of Interior on February 1 on allegations of traveling with forged passports. According to a recent Telegraph report, the couple has been caught in the crossfire of an internal power struggle within the Taliban. Their arrest was reportedly ordered by a senior commander from the Haqqani Network. A high-ranking Taliban official disclosed to The Telegraph that their detention was intended as leverage to extract concessions from their respective governments, particularly the UK.
Peter and Barbie Reynolds, who married in Kabul in 1970, spent 18 years living in Afghanistan and founded Rebuild, an organization dedicated to providing educational programs for both governmental and non-governmental institutions. The couple remained in Afghanistan until the Taliban seized power in 2021. Last month, they were separately taken to a Kabul court; however, after hours of waiting, their trial was postponed without explanation.
