The Taliban said they had freed an American engineer, Mark R. Frerichs, in exchange for the release of a prominent Afghan tribal leader convicted of drug trafficking.
A new intelligence assessment of the Al Qaeda threat was prepared after a drone strike killed Ayman al-Zawahri, the group’s leader. But some outside counterterrorism specialists said it was overly optimistic.
President Biden now confronts the question of what, if anything, he will do in response to the revelation that the Taliban were again sheltering a leader of Al Qaeda.