The move was a significant shift toward leaders of the Haqqani network, which was behind some of the deadliest attacks during the war in Afghanistan.
The United States has lifted multimillion-dollar bounties on three senior Taliban officials, according to Afghan authorities and a senior American official. The move is a significant shift by the Trump administration toward militants who were behind some of the deadliest attacks during the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan but have refashioned themselves as a more moderate voice within the Taliban.
The bounties were removed days after a U.S. hostage envoy, Adam Boehler, made the first visit by a high-ranking American diplomat to Kabul, the Afghan capital, since the Taliban seized power in 2021. His talks with Taliban representatives led to the release of an American citizen who had been detained in Afghanistan for more than two years.
Many Taliban officials saw the meeting in Kabul and the subsequent lifting of the bounties as a major victory for a government that was almost completely shut out by the United States during the Biden administration. The steps also put fresh momentum behind a Taliban faction that has pushed for the government to pull back on its hard-line policies to gain wider acceptance on the world stage.
The United States had offered $20 million in bounties for information about three leaders of the Haqqani network, the only wing of the Taliban to be classified by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization. Among the three leaders is Sirajuddin Haqqani, who heads up the network and is the acting Taliban interior minister.
Mr. Haqqani, his brother Abdul Azizi Haqqani and a cousin, Yahya Haqqani, no longer appear on the State Department’s Rewards for Justice website. The bounty was removed on Monday from the F.B.I.’s wanted poster for Sirajuddin Haqqani.