US negotiating for release of Colorado man detained by Taliban for past year

Sam Tabachnik, The Denver Post on Jan 26, 2026

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DENVER — The U.S. government is negotiating for the release of a Colorado man who has been detained by the Taliban in Afghanistan for the past year.

Dennis Coyle, a 64-year-old from Pueblo, was kidnapped on Jan. 27, 2025, near his workplace by the Taliban General Directorate of Intelligence, the group’s intelligence agency, while he was working as an academic researcher to support Afghan language communities, his family said on a website advocating for his release.

Coyle’s three sisters and 83-year-old mother lost contact with him for nine months before learning he was alive, his sister, Molly Long, told News Nation earlier this month. Coyle has been held in near-solitary conditions in a basement, his family says. He does not have medical care and must seek permission to use the bathroom, they said.

“With each phone call that we get from him, we get more and more desperate to get him home,” Long told News Nation.

Taliban officials told CBS News that Coyle is in good health and his “rights as a prisoner are protected.” They claimed formal court proceedings in his case would begin “soon.”

The Trump administration and the Afghan government for months have been secretly negotiating the release of U.S. detainees, including Coyle, the New York Times reported Monday. Sources, though, told the newspaper that talks have stalled, with Afghan officials insisting that the Americans release the last Afghan inmate held at Guantánamo Bay in any deal.

President Donald Trump, when asked last week about Coyle’s situation, said he didn’t know much about it but that he would “take a very strong position on it.”

“The Taliban should immediately release Dennis Coyle and all Americans detained in Afghanistan and end its practice of hostage diplomacy,” the U.S. State Department told CBS News in a statement. “We remind all Americans — do not travel to Afghanistan. The Taliban has detained Americans for years and the U.S. government cannot guarantee your safety.”

Coyle first arrived in Afghanistan in the early 2000s, working legally to “survey Afghanistan’s rich linguistic diversity and help Afghan communities develop resources in their own languages,” his family said on their website. The Colorado native lived in Kabul and built strong, lasting relationships with the community.

“Dennis has always embraced Afghan culture with genuine warmth — sharing cups of traditional green tea, enjoying dried fruit snacks, and engaging in the kind of heartfelt conversations that bridge cultures,” his family wrote. “His love for the Afghan people isn’t just professional; it’s personal and deeply felt.”

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