WASHINGTON — The U.S. State Department has not responded to questions about the reported removal of a $10 million reward for Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban’s acting interior minister and a senior leader of the Haqqani network — a group long designated by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization.
Haqqani’s name and profile, previously featured on the State Department’s Rewards for Justice website, are no longer visible on the public list. The department, when contacted by Amu, acknowledged receipt of the inquiry but said only that it would “respond as soon as possible.” No further comment was provided by the time of publication.
Haqqani’s name, however, remains listed on the FBI’s Most Wanted website, creating ambiguity around whether a policy shift has taken place or whether the State Department’s listing was updated without public explanation.
The Taliban have publicly claimed that the U.S. government has removed Sirajuddin Haqqani and two of his close associates — Abdul Aziz Haqqani and Yahya Haqqani — from its list of most-wanted individuals, and that the monetary rewards offered for information leading to their arrest have been rescinded.
Abdul Mateen Qani, spokesperson for the Taliban’s Ministry of Interior, told Taliban-run media that the $10 million bounty for Sirajuddin Haqqani and the $5 million rewards for the two other figures had been withdrawn.
Anas Haqqani, the brother of Sirajuddin, welcomed the alleged move in an interview with Al Jazeera, calling it “a political achievement” for the Taliban.
The reports emerged after a recent visit to Kabul by a delegation of former U.S. officials, including Zalmay Khalilzad, the former special representative for Afghan reconciliation. While the nature of the meetings remains unclear, the timing has raised speculation about renewed informal contacts between Taliban leaders and Washington.
Former Officials Sound Alarm
The lack of clarification has drawn sharp criticism from former U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials. Sarah Adams, a former CIA officer, said the reported delisting amounted to “a reward for terrorists.”
“Sirajuddin Haqqani personally oversaw more than 1,000 suicide bombings against U.S. and NATO forces,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter. She added that Abdul Aziz Haqqani played a key role in supporting the late Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and had ties to the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya.
Ms. Adams said the move — if confirmed — sets “a dangerous precedent” and undermines two decades of U.S. counterterrorism efforts.
She also accused the Haqqani network of involvement in the August 26, 2021, suicide bombing at Kabul International Airport, which killed 13 American service members and more than 170 Afghan civilians during the final days of the U.S. withdrawal.
A Network Long Designated as Terrorist
The Haqqani network was founded in the late 1970s by Jalaluddin Haqqani, the father of Sirajuddin. The group became one of the most lethal factions within the Taliban insurgency, accused by U.S. officials of orchestrating high-profile attacks, including assaults on embassies, kidnappings and mass-casualty bombings.
In September 2012, the U.S. State Department formally designated the Haqqani network as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. It announced rewards ranging from $5 million to $10 million for information leading to the arrest of key leaders, including Sirajuddin, Abdul Aziz, Yahya Haqqani, Khalil-ur-Rahman Haqqani, and Abdul Rauf Zakir.
As of this week, those names have disappeared from the State Department’s Rewards for Justice website, though no official statement has been issued to confirm their removal or explain its reasoning.
For now, the absence of clarity has raised alarms among former officials and human rights advocates who warn that quiet delistings — even if administrative — could be interpreted by the Taliban as a signal of normalization, absent any accountability for past violence.
