An elderly British couple who have been freed after being detained by the Taliban earlier this year have been reunited with their daughter.
Barbie Reynolds, 76, and her husband Peter, 80, were detained by the Taliban’s interior ministry on 1 February as they travelled to their home in Bamyan province, central Afghanistan.
In March, they were moved to a maximum security prison in Kabul where they had been held without charge.
In the final stages of negotiations they were transferred to Kabul’s central prison.
They were safely released from detention on Friday and flown to Doha following mediation led by Qatar.
As they touched down in Doha, Sky correspondent Sally Lockwood said she saw the “joy” on Mrs Reynolds’ face as her daughter Sarah hugged her on the tarmac.
She told Lockwood it was “wonderful” to have arrived in Qatar.
Image: Peter Reynolds, who was released from Taliban detention in Afghanistan, hugging his daughter Sarah. Pic: Ruters
Image: Peter and Barbie Reynolds walk after disembarking from a plane, in Doha, Qatar. Pic: Reuters
Earlier, Sky correspondent Cordelia Lynch was at Kabul Airport as the freed couple arrived and departed.
Mr Reynolds told her: “We are just very thankful.”
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Detained British couple speak to Sky News
His wife added: “We’ve been treated very well. We’re looking forward to seeing our children.
“We are looking forward to returning to Afghanistan if we can. We are Afghan citizens.”
Asked by Lynch if they had a message for family and friends, Mrs Reynolds replied: “My message is God is good, as they say in Afghanistan.”
Image: Peter and Barbie Reynolds after their release
Image: Qatari and British diplomats with Barbie and Peter Reynolds on the flight to Doha
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer welcomed the news in a statement thanking Qatar.
“I welcome the release of Peter and Barbara Reynolds from detention in Afghanistan, and I know this long-awaited news will come as a huge relief to them and their family,” he said.
“I want to pay tribute to the vital role played by Qatar, including The Amir, His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani, in securing their freedom.”
Image: Peter Reynolds was visited by Qatari diplomats last month
Richard Lindsay, the UK’s special envoy to Afghanistan, told Lynch it remained “unclear” on what grounds the couple had been detained.
He said they were “very relieved to be going home and delighted to be reunited with their family”.
Asked about the state of their health, he said: “I am not a doctor, but they are very happy.”
He added the British government’s travel advice to the country was clear. “We advise British nationals not to travel to Afghanistan. That remains the case and will remain the case,” he said.
Abdul Qahar Balkhi, a spokesperson at the Talibangovernment’s foreign ministry, said in a statement posted on X that the couple “violated Afghan law” and were released from prison after a court hearing.
He did not say what law the couple were alleged to have broken.
Image: Pic: Sarah Entwistle
Image: Pic: Reynolds family
Qatar, the energy-rich nation on the Arabian Peninsula that mediated talks between the US and the Taliban before the American withdrawal, helped in releasing the Reynolds.
Mirdef Ali Al-Qashouti, acting charge d’affaires at the Qatar Embassy in Kabul, told Lynch that Qatari officials ensured the couple were kept in “comfortable” conditions during talks.
He told Lynch the Reynolds’ release was because of “continuous efforts by my government to keep our policy in helping releasing hostages and our mediation and diplomacy”.
“Throughout their eight months in detention – during which they were largely held separately – the Qatari embassy in Kabul provided them with critical support, including access to their doctor, delivery of medication, and regular communication with their family,” a Qatari official told Reuters news agency.
Couple filled with emotion but alert and composed after time in Afghan jail
At Kabul International Airport, we watched as a string of Afghan, Qatari and British officials walked into a building by the runway, alongside doctors.
On the runway a plane waited, the steps ready for what appeared to be an imminent departure. We had heard from our sources about the possible release of Peter and Barbie Reynolds, the elderly British couple detained in February, but we had no official confirmation yet.
Then, from behind a double door, I caught the eye of Barbie. The 76-year old smiled at me – her face seemingly bright with relief. Her husband, Peter, 80, then stepped into frame. A tall gentle looking man, his eyes looked filled with emotion.
Their relief and gratitude was immediately apparent. It was of course impossible to know what state their health was in, but they appeared alert and composed, despite nearly eight months in detention.
The couple’s son, Jonathan, had previously said his father had been suffering serious convulsions and his mother was “numb” from anaemia and malnutrition. The UN had also described their conditions as “inhumane”. But today, as he prepared to leave the country, Peter wouldn’t be drawn on the conditions he faced. “We’re just very thankful, very thankful,” he told me.
Barbie, who spent part of her detention in a separate facility, looked strikingly calm – a graceful and understated demeanour. “We’ve been treated very well,” she said as she made her way to the plane. Taliban officials maintained they received adequate medical care in prison and their human rights were respected.
Hamish Falconer, minister for the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan, said in a statement: “The UK has worked intensively since their detention and has supported the family throughout.
“Qatar played an essential role in this case, for which I am hugely grateful.”
The couple have lived in Afghanistan for 18 years and run an organisation called Rebuild, which provides education and training programmes.
They have been together since the 1960s and married in the Afghan capital in 1970.
Their son, Jonathan, told Sky News in April his parents had “never heard one accusation or one charge”.
He said the British government had offered to evacuate them when the Taliban took over, to which they replied: “Why would we leave these people in their darkest hour?”
Mr and Mrs Reynolds are now on their way home, where they will be reunited with their family.
Speaking to Sky News from Wyoming in the United States following their release, Jonathan said he was “excited” to be seeing his parents again, and joked: “I’m a little bit jealous of my dad’s beard.”
“They look really well to me,” he said, “which I’m just delighted about”.
“I am looking forward to putting my arms around them and giving them a big hug, as all of my siblings will be.”
He offered his “special thanks” to all the British and Qatari diplomats involved in his parents’ release.
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‘I’m just so excited to see my parents’
He said the grounds for their detention remained a mystery as they were given no explanation for their arrest.
“They were investigated for all kinds of things but everything came up with no evidence of any wrongdoing,” he said.
“One of them, the original arrest, they said something about flying a drone – my parents don’t own a drone. It’s hard enough trying to get them to know how to use certain new technologies, let alone a drone.
“So, yeah, bizarre things, but I think they were just people of interest and then got caught up in a big, big mess of a situation, and no one knew what to do. But I’m just happy they are home.”
Asked about their desire to return to Afghanistan, he said: “It’s probably not wise to go back to a place where they are not welcome, and I would say, clearly they are not welcome there.”
“They are going to arrive back in the UK with the clothes on their backs. They have sold everything… all of their possessions,” he said, when asked what the future held for his parents.
“Knowing my mum she has probably written a few books in her mind whilst she’s been in captivity.
“We have heard great reports from schools across Afghanistan that the programmes they set up are running really, really well, so they will probably want to continue those,” he added.
China will evacuate 400,000 people over a super typhoon that slammed into the Philippines and Taiwan today.
Super Typhoon Ragasa, which is heading to southeastern China, has sustained winds of 134mph.
Thousands of people have already been evacuated from homes and schools in the Philippines and Taiwan, with hundreds of thousands more to leave their homes in China.
More than 8,200 were evacuated to safety in Cagayan while 1,220 fled to emergency shelters in Apayao, which is prone to flash floods and landslides.
Image: The projected route of Super Typhoon Ragasa, by the Japanese Typhoon Centre. Pic: Japan Meteorological Agency
Domestic flights were suspended in northern provinces hit by the typhoon, and fishing boats and inter-island ferries were prohibited from leaving ports over rough seas.
In Taiwan’s southern Taitung and Pingtung counties, closures were ordered in some coastal and mountainous areas along with the Orchid and Green islands.
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Officials in southern Chinese tech hub, Shenzhen, said they planned to relocate around 400,000 people including people in low-lying and flood-prone areas.
Image: Strong waves batter Basco, Batanes province, northern Philippines, on Monday. (AP Photo/Justine Mark Pillie Fajardo)
Shenzhen’s airport added it will halt flights from Tuesday night.
In Fujian province, on China’s southeast coast, 50 ferry routes were suspended.
According to China’s National Meteorological Centre, the typhoon will make landfall in the coastal area between Shenzhen city and Xuwen county in Guangdong province on Wednesday.
Image: The International Space Station captures the eye of Typhoon Ragasa. (Pic: NASA/Reuters)
A tropical cyclone with sustained winds of 115mph or higher is categorised in the Philippines as a super typhoon.
The term was adopted years ago to demonstrate the urgency tied to extreme weather disturbances.
Ragasa was heading west and was forecast to remain in the South China Sea until at least Wednesday while passing south of Taiwan and Hong Kong, before landfall on the China mainland.
The Philippines’ weather agency warned there was “a high risk of life-threatening storm surge with peak heights exceeding three metres within the next 24 hours over the low-lying or exposed coastal localities” of the northern provinces of Cagayan, Batanes, Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur.
Power was cut out on Calayan island and in the entire northern mountain province of Apayao, west of Cagayan, disaster officials said.
There were no immediate reports of casualties from Ragasa, which is known locally in the Philippines as Nando.
On Monday, Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos Jr suspended government work and all classes on Monday in the capital, Manila, and 29 provinces in the main northern Luzon region.
The rock has been hurled into the lake and now the ripples are spreading.
The UK and several other Western countries recognising a Palestinian state was never likely to be an action without consequences.
So what happens next? Well, firstly, a surge of angry rhetoric from across the Israeli political spectrum, almost all of whom described this as a victory for Hamas.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it “an absurd prize for terrorism” while Yair Lapid, leader of the opposition, described recognition as “a bad move and a reward for terror”.
Former defence minister Benny Gantz said it “emboldens Hamas and extends the war”, and Naftali Bennett, the man who may well usurp Netanyahu as prime minister next year, said recognition could lead to a “full-blown terror state”.
The forum that represents the families of hostages called it “a catastrophic failure”.
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‘Annexation’ is incredibly complicated
So that’s unity in condemnation. But words are one thing; actions are another. And the more extreme ministers in Netanyahu’s cabinet, who carry great weight, are coalescing around a single rallying cry – the demand is annexation of the West Bank.
It sounds blunt, but it is incredibly complicated. For one thing, simply defining what is meant by “annexation” is near-on impossible.
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UK formally recognises Palestine
The West Bank, which a growing number of Israelis refer to by its biblical name of Judea and Samaria, has been subject to Israeli military occupation since 1967.
In a sense, it is already partly annexed – the West Bank is dotted with settlements and outposts that are home to hundreds of thousands of Israelis. So annexation could mean supporting and expanding those developments.
Or annexation could mean sending in more soldiers, more equipment and taking more land, potentially in the Jordan valley.
It could mean pumping resources into the controversial and internationally criticised E1 settlement programme, which would divide the West Bank in half.
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But it could even mean the very thing that you probably think of when you hear the word “annexation”. It could mean Israel flooding the area with soldiers and claiming the land for itself – an invasion, in other words.
It might sound appealing to the likes of Israeli far-right politicians Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. At the same time, it would infuriate Arab nations, who are already seething that Israel chose to launch an airstrike on a building in Qatar to try, seemingly unsuccessfully, to kill Hamas leaders.
A loyalty test for the US
Full annexation would test the loyalty of the United States, which has, so far, supported Netanyahu through thick and thin. The attack on Doha has already prompted a mild rebuke; Israel’s government will not want to risk losing the backing of its most important diplomatic ally.
President Trump is due to meet Arab leaders on Tuesday, who will tell him of their fears for the future of the West Bank.
This will not be easy for Netanyahu. He has to balance the need to retain Trump’s friendship and support with a desire to dissuade other nations from recognising the State of Palestine, along with the need to keep Arab neighbours from turning against him while keeping Smotrich and Ben-Gvir in his cabinet.
So Netanyahu is going to bide his time. He will not make a decision on next steps until he has returned from visiting both the United Nations and the White House.
The immediate future of the West Bank might well be decided on a flight back from America.
A British-Egyptian activist who has spent years in prison has been pardoned by Egypt’s president, according to his lawyer.
Alaa Abd el-Fattahbecame a prominent campaigner during protests in Cairo in 2011 that led to the ousting of former president Hosni Mubarak.
In 2014, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison – later reduced to five – for protesting without permission.
He was released in 2019 but arrested again for sharing a Facebook post about human rights abuses in Egyptian prisons.
It led to another five-year term in 2021 for “spreading fake news”.
High-profile local and international campaigns have called for his release and Egypt removed him from its “terrorism” list last year.
Mr Fattah has British citizenship through his UK-born mother, Laila Soueif, who went on hunger strike over his case and met Sir Keir Starmer to push for her son’s freedom.
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The 43-year-old also undertook multiple hunger strikes of his own to highlight his case.
Today his lawyer, Khaled Ali, writing in Arabic on Facebook, posted: “God is the judge. The President of the Republic has issued a decree pardoning Alaa Abdel Fattah. Congratulations.”
Image: Mr el-Fattah’s mother (middle) at a protest calling for her son’s release in 2023. Pic: PA
His sister said on X that she and her mother were “heading to the prison now to inquire from where Alaa will be released and when”.
“Omg I can’t believe we get our lives back!” she added.
The Egyptian president’s office said another five prisoners were also pardoned – but it’s unclear exactly when they will all be freed.
Mr Ali said he expected his client to be released from Wadi Natron prison, north of Cairo, in the next few days.
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Image: Alaa Abd el-Fattah has spent nearly all of the last decade in prison. Pic: Reuters
Mr Fattah became known for his blogging and social media activity during the Arab Spring protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square 14 years ago.
But a wide-ranging crackdown on Islamists, liberals and leftists by the new president, former army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, led to the activist being imprisoned for the first time.
During his second spell in jail, his family said he was locked up without sunlight, exercise and books – and abused by the guards.
Mr Fattah’s mother – a former maths professor – and lawyer father, who died in 2014, were also both activists.
Khaled Ali tried to get Mr Fattah freed in 2024, arguing his client’s two years of pre-trial detention should be counted, but prosecutors resisted and said he wouldn’t be allowed out until January 2027.
The refusal prompted his mother to begin another long hunger strike in September last year.
She only ended it two months ago following pleas from her family after she lost 35kg and became seriously ill.
Image: The activist’s mother lost 35kg during her most recent hunger strike. Pic: Reuters
Human rights groups say tens of thousands of prisoners of conscience have been incarcerated under the current president.
They allege they are denied due process and suffer abuse and torture – claims denied by Egyptian officials.
Chair of the foreign affairs select committee, the MP Emily Thornberry, said on X that she was “absolutely delighted” about Mr Fattah’s pardon.
She posted: “Laila, Mona, Sanaa and Alaa’s entire family’s tireless campaign for his release has been incredibly moving – their love for him was clear when I met Sanaa last year,
“I am so glad they will get to see him come home.”