The United States has lifted a $10 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Sirajuddin Haqqani, a senior Taliban figure and head of the Haqqani network, according to Afghan officials cited by Al Jazeera on March 22, 2025.
The change came days after the Taliban released George Glezmann, a US citizen who had been held in Afghanistan for two years. The release marked the third time since January that the Taliban had freed a US detainee, a sequence that has become one of the few visible channels of contact between Washington and the Taliban government.
Even with the reward removed, the underlying US view of Haqqani had not changed in the public record cited in the report. The FBI still listed the bounty on its website at the time of the story, describing Haqqani as a figure believed to have coordinated and participated in cross-border attacks against US and coalition forces in Afghanistan. That detail matters because it shows the reward decision did not erase the formal accusations that helped make Haqqani one of the most wanted Taliban-linked leaders for years.
The timing also placed the move inside a broader, cautious diplomatic pattern. The Taliban has framed releases of US detainees as part of a wider effort to normalise its standing abroad, while the United States and other governments have continued to treat the group as an international pariah since its takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021. No country has officially recognised the Taliban government, though some states still maintain diplomatic channels or facilities.
According to the report, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Glezmann’s release a positive and constructive step and thanked Qatar for its role in securing it. That suggests Washington was willing to treat the release as a practical humanitarian gain even while keeping a hard line on the Taliban’s broader legitimacy.
Haqqani remains a deeply controversial figure in the history of the Afghan war. He led the Haqqani network, a group the United States designated as a terror organisation, and the network has long been associated with suicide bombings, assassinations and kidnappings. The report also notes that the network was suspected in the abduction of US soldier Bowe Bergdahl, who was released in 2014.
The decision to remove the reward therefore reads less like a clean break than a narrow transactional shift. It reflects the strange overlap between prisoner diplomacy, intelligence designations and the Taliban’s search for international recognition. For now, the United States has altered one visible pressure tool. It has not publicly changed its broader assessment of Haqqani or the movement that protects him.
