Amid peace efforts, U.S. offers $5 million for information on Americans missing in Afghanistan

As negotiators for the Taliban and the government in Kabul prepare to begin peace talks, the United States on Wednesday announced a significant reward for the return of two Americans who are missing in Afghanistan. 

The U.S. Department of State and the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Aug. 26 offered rewards of up to $5 million in exchange for information that leads to recovering Mark Randall Frerichs and Paul Edwin Overby, Jr., who disappeared in separate incidents in Afghanistan.

The reward offer signifies two postures from the United States, according to a former government security officer who specialized in hostage affairs.

One element involves removing impediments to pulling troops from Afghanistan, said Dale McElhattan, who directed the State Department's office of hostage affairs in Iraq.

"They're pulling things out of the toolbox to hasten the timetable of us getting out of Afghanistan," McElhattan told Just the News.

The rewards also signal a change in dealing with adversaries who hold Americans captive, he said.

"The shift has gone from going after the bad guy to appealing to his financial interest," McElhattan said. Hence, the large rewards for Overby and Frerichs.

Both men were kidnapped, U.S. officials said.

Overby, who will turn 78 in November, was last seen in Khost, Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan, in mid-May of 2014, according to the FBI. 

"At the time of his disappearance, he was conducting research for a book he was writing and it appeared that he planned to cross the border into Pakistan in furtherance of his work," the FBI said in a 2018 press release. 

Frerichs, 58, was kidnapped in February while working as a contractor based out of Kabul. "He was last observed wearing black boots, green tactical pants, a green jacket with a hood, and a silver scarf," the FBI said.

While little has emerged openly regarding Overby, the U.S. Special Representative for Afghan Reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, has said that in meetings this year, he pressed the Taliban to release Frerichs.

The Taliban reportedly denied knowledge of the man's fate.

"Yes, Dr. Khalilzad asked for his release, and he has made similar requests in our previous meetings with him," Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen told Voice of America in May. "But from our side, it has again been conveyed to him that Mark Frerichs is not with us, nor did we capture him." 

The Taliban and the government in Kabul, meanwhile, continue to discuss holding intra-Afghan peace talks, an arrangement that emerged from dialogues between the U.S. and the Taliban, aimed at ending a nearly 19-year war. 

As the U.S. continues its own talks with the Taliban, McElhattan said, negotiators should insist on recovering the missing Americans, or their remains.

"Don't let up," McElhattan said. "Put it front and center again." And, he said, publicize the $5 million bounty.

The rewards are being offered through the State Department's Rewards for Justice program, which was formed in 1984. Since then, the program has paid more than $150 million to people whose information helped in preventing or prosecuting terrorism, according to the State Department.