The United States has lifted bounties on three senior Taliban officials, including Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, who also leads the Haqqani network, a group long blamed for deadly attacks against Afghanistan's former Western-backed government, Afghan officials said Sunday. Haqqani, who previously admitted to orchestrating the 2008 attack on Kabul's Serena Hotel that killed six people, including American citizen Thor David Hesla, no longer appears on the U.S. State Department's Rewards for Justice website. According to Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani, the U.S. government revoked the bounties on Sirajuddin Haqqani, Abdul Aziz Haqqani, and Yahya Haqqani. "These three individuals are two brothers and one paternal cousin," he told The Associated Press. The Haqqani network, originally founded by Jalaluddin Haqqani, rose to prominence as one of the most lethal arms of the Taliban following the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The group has been linked to a series of high-profile attacks on the Indian and U.S. embassies, the Afghan presidency, and other targets, and has also been accused of engaging in extortion, kidnappings, and other criminal activities. Zakir Jalaly, a Foreign Ministry official in Kabul, said the U.S. decision to lift the bounties — coming just days after the release of American prisoner George Glezmann — signaled a thaw in bilateral relations. "Both sides are moving beyond the effects of the wartime phase and taking constructive steps to pave the way for progress," Jalaly said. "The recent developments in Afghanistan-U.S. relations are a good example of pragmatic and realistic engagement." Shafi Azam, another official, welcomed the move as the beginning of normalization, noting the Taliban's recent assertion of control over Afghanistan's embassy in Norway as further evidence of diplomatic progress. Since taking power in August 2021, the Taliban have struggled with global isolation, worsened by their sweeping restrictions on women and girls. Only a few countries, including China and Qatar, have formally or informally engaged with the Taliban diplomatically. The U.S. has also maintained indirect channels of communication. Despite being under United Nations sanctions since 2007, Sirajuddin Haqqani has traveled internationally in the past year. These trips, made with U.N. clearance, were his first abroad since the Taliban's return to power. Haqqani has also voiced rare public criticism of the Taliban's decision-making process, highlighting internal divisions within the group's leadership. — Agencies
