The United States has lifted a $10 million reward offer for information leading to the arrest of a major Taliban leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, an Afghan interior ministry spokesperson said.
The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to request for comment. The FBI still lists the reward on its website, saying Haqqani was "believed to have coordinated and participated in cross-border attacks against United States and coalition forces in Afghanistan”.
Sirajuddin Haqqani is currently serving as interior minister in the Taliban government in Kabul, and heads the Haqqani network, which has been designated a terror outfit by the US for carrying out several major attacks on foreign and Afghan forces during the 20-year-long war in Afghanistan. The Taliban, however, insist that there is no separate factions within the group.
This development comes after the Taliban on Thursday freed an American citizen, George Glezmann, who had been detained in Afghanistan for over two years. Glezmann, a mechanic for Delta Airlines in Atlanta, was detained in 2022 while visiting Kabul as a tourist.
In December last year, Sirajuddin’s uncle, Khalil Rahman Haqqani, who was the acting minister for refugees in the Taliban government, and six other people were killed in an explosion in Kabul.
First public appearance in 2022
Sirajuddin Haqqani initially kept a low profile after the Taliban entered Kabul in August 2021, meeting with foreign dignitaries and Taliban officials but with photographs from such meetings always being blurred.
He made his first public appearance in March 2022. He is the son of Mujahideen leader Jalauddin Haqqani, who fought against the Soviet Union in the 1980s before later joining the Taliban.
