The US lifts bounties on senior Taliban officials, including Sirajuddin Haqqani, says Kabul

The U.S. has lifted bounties on three senior Taliban figures, including the interior minister who also heads a powerful network blamed for bloody attacks against Afghanistan’s former Western-backed government, officials in Kabul said Sunday.

Sirajuddin Haqqani, who acknowledged planning a January 2008 attack on the Serena Hotel in Kabul, which killed six people, including U.S. citizen Thor David Hesla, no longer appears on the State Department’s Rewards for Justice website. The FBI website on Sunday still featured a wanted poster for him.

Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani said the U.S. government had revoked the bounties placed on Haqqani, Abdul Aziz Haqqani, and Yahya Haqqani.

“These three individuals are two brothers and one paternal cousin,” Qani told The Associated Press.

The Haqqani network grew into one of the deadliest arms of the Taliban after the U.S.-led 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. The group employed roadside bombs, suicide bombings and other attacks, including on the Indian and U.S. embassies, the Afghan presidency, and other major targets. They also have been linked to extortion, kidnapping and other criminal activity.

A Foreign Ministry official, Zakir Jalaly, said the Taliban’s release of U.S. prisoner George Glezmann on Friday and the removal of bounties showed both sides were “moving beyond the effects of the wartime phase and taking constructive steps to pave the way for progress” in bilateral relations.

“The recent developments in Afghanistan-U.S. relations are a good example of the pragmatic and realistic engagement between the two governments,” said Jalaly.

Taliban see the opening in breaking out of isolation

Another official, Shafi Azam, hailed the development as the beginning of normalization, also citing the Taliban’s announcement they were in control of Afghanistan’s embassy in Norway.

Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, China has been the most prominent country to accept one of their diplomats. Other countries have accepted de facto Taliban representatives, like Qatar, which has been a key mediator between the U.S. and the Taliban. U.S. envoys have also met the Taliban.

The Taliban rule, especially bans affecting women and girls, has triggered widespread condemnation and deepened their international isolation.

Haqqani has previously spoken out against the Taliban’s decision-making process, authoritarianism and alienation of the Afghan population.

He has been under U.N. sanctions since 2007, because of his involvement with the network founded by his father, Jalaluddin.

But the global body has allowed him to travel in the past 12 months, including to the United Arab Emirates to meet the country’s leadership and to Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage. Those were his first trips abroad since the Taliban takeover.

Ibraheem Bahiss, a senior analyst with International Crisis Group’s Asia program, said the removal of the bounties was a win for Taliban officials wanting to do business with the international community. The U.S. was showing it could reward those who made compromises within their own remit, even if these compromises didn’t translate to national policy, he said.

The international community had made demands of the Taliban, specifically lifting restrictions on women and girls, but offered nothing in return, said Bahiss. Scrapping bounties was a sign that small diplomatic overtures were possible.

While recognition as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan might not immediately be on the horizon, the Taliban viewed normalization as enough progress given their existing diplomatic inroads in the region, according to Bahiss.

“For the Taliban, the removal of sanctions is more important than (official) recognition. Sanctions bite. They inhibit your ability to do business, to travel. That’s why they would celebrate this as a victory. The transactional nature of this diplomacy suits both the Taliban and Trump.”

His partial rehabilitation on the international stage is in contrast to the status of the reclusive Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, who could face arrest by the International Criminal Court for his persecution of women.