The United States has lifted multimillion-dollar bounties on three senior Taliban officials, according to Afghan authorities and a senior American official, a significant shift by the Trump administration toward some of the most blood-soaked jihadists from the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.
The move comes days after a U.S. hostage envoy, 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 an American 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 United States during the Biden administration. The steps also put fresh momentum behind less hard-line Taliban voices who have been engaged in an internal power struggle, pushing for their government to moderate its policies to gain wider acceptance on the world stage.
The United States had offered $20 million in bounties for information about three leaders of the Haqqani network, the deadliest arm of the Taliban during the 20-year war. The network is the only wing of the Taliban to be classified by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization. Among the three leaders is Sirajuddin Haqqani, who heads up the network and is the acting Taliban interior minister.
Mr. Haqqani, his brother Abdul Azizi Haqqani and a cousin, Yahya Haqqani, no longer appear on the State Department’s Rewards for Justice website. The bounty was removed on Monday from the F.B.I.’s wanted poster for Sirajuddin Haqqani.
A spokesman for the Taliban’s Ministry of Interior Affairs, Abdul Mateen Qani, said that “a deal with the U.S. was finalized” to lift the bounties, after the issue was discussed multiple times with American officials.
“This is a major achievement for the Islamic Emirate,” he added, referring to the Taliban government.
The American official who confirmed the bounty removals spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy. 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 Thursday in Kabul between Trump administration and Taliban officials followed initially tense indirect interactions by the two sides. In January, President Trump demanded that the Taliban return $7 billion in American military hardware left in Afghanistan after the U.S. 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 Islamic State affiliate in the region at bay, according to two Afghan officials with knowledge of the matter.
Since the Taliban seized power, the United States has led the charge in isolating their government, which has imposed the most draconian restrictions on women in the world. Biden administration officials stressed that the United States would not ease any sanctions until those restrictions were lifted.
But as the Taliban, led by an ultraconservative cleric, Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada, made clear that they would not bow to outside pressure, the United States became an outlier in its firm approach.
While no country officially recognizes 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 Ibraheem Bahiss, an International Crisis Group consultant. The lifting of the U.S. bounties showed that the release of the American held in Afghanistan “was somehow reciprocated with some good will or that a transactional deal had been struck.”
It is also a notable change in American policy toward Sirajuddin Haqqani, an ambitious political operator who embraced suicide attacks like few other Taliban leaders and was responsible for the bloodiest attacks during the U.S.-led war.
In 2011, Mr. Haqqani’s men launched a 19-hour-long assault on the U.S. 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 Sheikh Haibatullah 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 Sheikh Haibatullah 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 hard-liners and say this is the kind of reciprocity we can get for the compromises we are advocating for.”
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