The United States has removed a $10 million reward offer for information leading to the arrest of Sirajuddin Haqqani, a senior Taliban leader, according to an Afghan interior ministry spokesperson on Saturday.
Previously, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had placed Haqqani on its wanted list, offering the substantial reward. He leads the Haqqani network, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the US due to its involvement in major attacks against foreign and Afghan forces during the 20-year-long war in Afghanistan. However, the Taliban have consistently maintained that the Haqqani network is not a separate faction but part of their overall movement.
The US State Department has not yet responded to Reuters’ request for confirmation. Meanwhile, the FBI’s website still lists the reward, stating that Haqqani is believed to have orchestrated and participated in cross-border attacks on US and coalition forces in Afghanistan.
This news follows the release of an American citizen detained in Afghanistan for over two years. According to a source familiar with the matter, the release was facilitated through direct talks between US hostage envoy Adam Boehler and Taliban officials in Kabul.
The freed individual, George Glezmann, a mechanic for Delta Airlines in Atlanta, was arrested in 2022 while visiting Kabul as a tourist. On Thursday evening, he left Afghanistan aboard a Qatari aircraft bound for Qatar.
In December last year, Khalil Rahman Haqqani, the acting minister for refugees in the Taliban government and Sirajuddin’s uncle, was killed along with six others in an explosion in Kabul.
Sirajuddin Haqqani was one of the first senior Taliban leaders to enter Kabul after the Taliban took control in August 2021, though he remained largely out of the public eye for several months. While he met with foreign officials and Taliban leaders, images from those meetings were often blurred. His first official public appearance was in March 2022.
He is the son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, a Mujahideen leader who fought against the Soviet Union in the 1980s and later became a minister in the previous Taliban government.