Taliban Frees American Academic Dennis Coyle, Jailed Without Cause for over a Year

The Taliban junta in Afghanistan on Tuesday released U.S. citizen Dennis Coyle after 14 months in captivity. He arrived in San Antonio, Texas, on Wednesday morning.

Coyle, 64, is an academic from Colorado who had been working on linguistic research in Afghanistan for more than 20 years. He left Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover in August 2021, but returned about 18 months later after receiving assurances from the Taliban that it supported his work.

Coyle was forcibly arrested at his apartment in Kabul and detained without charges by the Taliban General Directorate of Intelligence in January 2025, six days after the Taliban released another American it had been holding, Ryan Corbett.

According to his family, Coyle was held in “near-solitary conditions” for the next 14 months, without ever being charged with a crime. He was denied adequate medical care and was only allowed to speak with his family