Washington D.C. – NewsNation, May 07, 2026
Dennis Coyle, the American researcher who spent 14 months as a captive of the Taliban, has had six weeks to decompress since the Trump administration secured his release from Afghanistan.
In his first sit-down interview, the 64-year-old talked with Katie Pavlich, the NewsNation host who had asked President Donald Trump about Coyle’s case. Joined by his sister, Molly Long, Coyle talked at length about his harrowing time as a detainee who was never charged with a crime — and his sudden freedom.
“Fourteen months I longed for the day to reconnect with my mom, with my family, so that’s a great blessing,” he said Wednesday. “And then I’m blessed with many friends who prayed for me throughout the country and beyond.”
He said he’s “reconnecting with them, one by one.”
Coyle, who first went to Afghanistan in 2008 to study language there, said he was at his Kabul apartment in January 2025 when about 10 Taliban intelligence officers arrested him and put a blindfold on him before taking him to another location. After 11 days in captivity, on Feb. 8, 2025, an investigator told him bluntly, “This will take a long time, and I don’t mean months — I mean years,” Coyle said.
He surmised that he was being held for political purposes, Coyle said, because “even under Afghan law, someone must be charged within a couple weeks, I was never charged of anything.”
Coyle said he initially was unable to make direct contact with his family, including his 83-year-old mother. His first communication came in the form of a letter from his sister Molly on June 25, 2025, the five-month mark of his detention. He said he was able to write his family a response, which gave them “proof of life.”
Coyle said he was able to keep a meticulous track of his time in captivity thanks to a “gift for numbers” and his interest in the calendars of different cultures. He said his talent even impressed his captors.
