US lifts millions in bounties on senior Taliban officials

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

The move is a significant shift by the Trump administration toward 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 organisation.

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.

The bounty was removed on March 24 from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s wanted poster for Mr Sirajuddin Haqqani.

A spokesman for the Taliban’s Ministry of Interior Affairs, Mr Abdul Mateen Qani, said that “a deal with the US was finalised” to lift the bounties, after the issue was discussed multiple times with US officials.

“This is a major achievement for the Islamic emirate,” he added, referring to the Taliban government.

The US official who confirmed the bounty removals spoke about sensitive diplomacy on the condition of anonymity.

The Trump administration, including in a January social media post by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has made clear that it could reimpose or increase bounties on Taliban leaders if additional Americans held in Afghanistan are not released.

The meeting on March 20 in Kabul between administration and Taliban officials followed initially tense indirect interactions by the two sides.

In January, President Donald Trump demanded that the Taliban return US$7 billion in US military hardware left in Afghanistan after the US withdrawal. He threatened to cut all financial aid to the country if it was not returned.

The Taliban authorities rejected the notion, noting that the equipment had been crucial in keeping the ISIS terror group affiliate in the region at bay, according to two Afghan officials with knowledge of the matter.

Since the Taliban seized power, the US has led the charge in isolating its government, which has imposed the most draconian restrictions on women in the world. Biden administration officials stressed that the US would not ease any sanctions until those restrictions were lifted.

But as the Taliban, led by ultra-conservative cleric Hibatullah Akhundzada, made clear that they would not bow to outside pressure, the US became an outlier in its firm approach.

While no country officially recognises the Taliban as the lawful authorities in Afghanistan, more countries in the region and in Europe have appeared to accept the limits of their influence and engage on issues on which they can find common ground.

“The Taliban has developed a proclivity to do transactional diplomacy, quid pro quo deals,” said Mr Ibraheem Bahiss, an International Crisis Group consultant. The lifting of the US bounties showed that the release of the American held in Afghanistan “was somehow reciprocated with some goodwill or that a transactional deal had been struck”.

It is also a notable change in US policy towards Mr Sirajuddin Haqqani, an ambitious political operator who embraced suicide attacks like a few other Taliban leaders and was responsible for the bloodiest attacks during the US-led war.

In 2011, his men launched a 19-hour-long assault on the US Embassy in Kabul. In 2017, his network was behind a truck bombing that killed more than 150 people, mostly civilians.

Over the past three years, Mr Haqqani has sought to remake his image and engage with the West through back channels. He appears to be trying to win foreign backing that could help him as he tries to negotiate with Mr Hibatullah over the Taliban’s most controversial policies, including the restrictions on women.

In January, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court requested arrest warrants for Mr Hibatullah and the country’s chief justice for their “unprecedented” persecution of women and girls.

“This is a victory for the engagement camp within the Taliban,” Mr Bahiss said of the lifting of the bounties.

More moderate figures “can go back to hardliners and say this is the kind of reciprocity we can get for the compromises we are advocating”. NYTIMES