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KABUL: The United States has removed multimillion-dollar bounties on leaders of Afghanistan’s feared Haqqani militant network, including the current Taliban interior minister, the State Department and the Taliban government said.
The Haqqani network was responsible for some of the deadliest attacks during the decades-long war in Afghanistan.
The men remain on Washington’s list of “specially designated global terrorists” but the bounty price has been scrapped.
Taliban interior ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani said that Washington had “canceled rewards” for Sirajuddin Haqqani – who also heads the Haqqani network – as well as other key leaders, Abdul Aziz Haqqani and Yahya Haqqani.
Sirajuddin Haqqani had long been one of Washington’s most important targets, with a $10 million bounty on his head.
The US State Department said that “the three persons named remain designated as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs), and the Haqqani Network remains designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and a SDGT.”
But while the wanted page remains active, the bounty on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) website has been removed.
“It is the policy of the United States to consistently review and refine Rewards for Justice reward offers,” a State Department spokesperson said on Wednesday.
The bounty cancelation came days after the first visit by US officials to Afghanistan since President Donald Trump returned to office, and the announcement afterwards of the release of a US citizen by Taliban authorities.
US-based Afghan political analyst Abdul Wahed Faqiri said that the bounty removal is likely “largely symbolic” but a way for the United States to “give credit to Sirajuddin Haqqani,” seen as an emerging more moderate “alternative.”
Media reports talk of increasing tensions between the “pragmatic” Haqqani figures and a more hardline circle around Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, who vie for influence within the government.
Despite the US bounty and international travel bans, Sirajuddin Haqqani has traveled outside Afghanistan multiple times since the Taliban government swept back to power in 2021.
The government in Kabul is not recognized by any country and has expressed hopes for “a new chapter” with Trump’s administration.
Trump signed a peace deal with the Taliban during his first term in office, that paved the way for the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and their return to power.

WASHINGTON: A US panel on religious freedom said on Tuesday the treatment of minorities in India is deteriorating and it recommended sanctions be imposed on India’s external spy agency over its alleged involvement in plots to assassinate Sikh separatists.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom also said in its annual report that communist-ruled Vietnam had stepped up efforts to regulate and control religious affairs. It recommended Vietnam be designated a “country of particular concern.”
“In 2024, religious freedom conditions in India continued to deteriorate as attacks and discrimination against religious minorities continued to rise,” the commission said in the report released on Tuesday.
Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) “propagated hateful rhetoric and disinformation against Muslims and other religious minorities” during last year’s election campaign, it said.
India dismissed the report on Wednesday, calling it part of a pattern of “biased and politically motivated assessments.”
“The USCIRF’s persistent attempts to misrepresent isolated incidents and cast aspersions on India’s vibrant multicultural society reflect a deliberate agenda rather than a genuine concern for religious freedom,” Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a statement.
Washington has sought to build close ties with both India and Vietnam given their shared concerns about China’s rising influence in Asia. Analysts say that as result Washington has overlooked human rights issues.
Since 2023, India’s alleged targeting of Sikh separatists in the US and Canada has emerged as a wrinkle in US-India ties, with Washington charging an ex-Indian intelligence officer, Vikash Yadav, in a foiled plot. India labels Sikh separatists as security threats and has denied involvement.
Modi, in April last year, referred to Muslims as “infiltrators” who have “more children.”
US State Department reports on human rights and religious freedom have noted minority abuses in recent years. New Delhi calls them “deeply biased.”
Modi, who has been prime minister since 2014, denies discrimination and says his government’s policies like electrification drives and subsidy schemes help all communities.
Rights advocates point to rising hate speech, a citizenship law the UN called “fundamentally discriminatory,” anti-conversion legislation, opens new tab that critics say challenges freedom of belief, the revoking, opens new tab of Muslim majority Kashmir’s special status and the demolition of properties owned by Muslims.
The panel recommended the US government designate India as a “country of particular concern” for religious freedom violations and impose targeted sanctions against Yadav and India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) spy service.
The commission is a bipartisan US government advisory body that monitors religious freedom abroad and makes policy recommendations.
But it is unlikely the US government will sanction RAW as the panel’s recommendations are not binding.
On Vietnam, the panel said a new decree issued this month allowed Vietnamese authorities to further demand financial records from religious organizations and suspend religious activities for what the report said were vaguely worded “serious violations.”
As of December, the US panel’s Freedom of Religion or Belief Victims List included over 80 prisoners whom the Vietnamese government punished for religious activities or religious freedom advocacy.
The Vietnamese embassy had no immediate comment.