US Lifts Millions in Bounties on Senior Taliban Officials

The US has lifted multimillion-dollar bounties on three senior Taliban officials, according to the Afghan authorities and a senior US official.

- Christina Goldbaum

WASHINGTON -

The move is a significant shift by the Trump administration towards militants who were behind some of the deadliest attacks during the US-led war in Afghanistan but have refashioned themselves as a more moderate voice within the Taliban.

The bounties were removed days after a US hostage envoy, Mr. Adam Boehler, made the first visit by a high-ranking American diplomat to Kabul, the Afghan capital, since the Taliban seized power in 2021. His talks with Taliban representatives led to the release of a US citizen who had been detained in Afghanistan for more than two years.

Many Taliban officials saw the meeting in Kabul and the subsequent lifting of the bounties as a major victory for a government that was almost completely shut out by the US during the Biden administration.

The steps also put fresh momentum behind a Taliban faction that has pushed for the government to pull back on its hardline policies to gain wider acceptance on the world stage.

The US had offered US$20 million (S$26.8 million) in bounties for information about three leaders of the Haqqani network, the only wing of the Taliban to be classified by the US as a foreign terrorist organization.

Among the three leaders is Mr. Sirajuddin Haqqani, who heads the network and is the Acting Taliban Interior Minister. Mr. Haqqani, his brother Abdul Aziz Haqqani and a cousin, Mr. Yahya Haqqani, no longer appear on the State Department's Rewards for Justice website.