US lifts bounties on three senior Taliban figures behind deadly attacks, death of US citizen

The US 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 say.

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

Taliban interior ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani says the US government has revoked the bounties placed on Haqqani, Abdul Aziz Haqqani, and Yahya Haqqani.

The Haqqani network grew into one of the deadliest arms of the Taliban after the US-led 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.

The group employed roadside bombs, suicide bombings and other attacks, including on the Indian and US embassies, the Afghan presidency, and other major targets. They also have been linked to extortion, kidnapping and other criminal activity.

A Taliban foreign ministry official, Zakir Jalaly, says the Taliban’s release of US prisoner George Glezmann on Friday and the removal of bounties shows both sides are “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-US relations are a good example of the pragmatic and realistic engagement between the two governments,” says Jalaly.