Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
January 27, 2025
Tensions between Washington and Taliban leaders in Afghanistan are rising a week into President Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio threatened on January 25 to place a bounty on Taliban leaders if the United States determines the group has imprisoned American citizens.
“Just hearing the Taliban is holding more American hostages than has been reported. If this is true, we will have to immediately place a VERY BIG bounty on their top leaders, maybe even bigger than the one we had on [Al-Qaeda leader Osama] Bin Laden,” Rubio wrote on X.
Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban’s acting interior minister, is currently the only senior member of the group on the FBI’s most wanted list. However, dozens of Taliban officials are sanctioned by the United Nations.
Rubio’s comment came days after the Taliban released two Americans in exchange for a member of the Taliban serving a life sentence in the United States on drug and terrorism charges.
The Taliban’s first formal response to Rubio came on January 27, with Suhail Shahin, the group’s ambassador to Qatar, claiming that it was the Taliban’s policy to resolve issues peacefully through dialogue.
However, he warned in a statement to RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi, “in the face of pressure and aggression, the jihad [struggle] of the Afghan nation in recent decades is a lesson that everyone should learn from.”
The Taliban fought U.S. and NATO troops for nearly 20 years until its return to power in 2021 following a chaotic and bloody withdrawal of foreign forces.
A U.S. Department of Defense report in 2022 said around $7 billion dollars worth of military equipment was left behind in Afghanistan during the withdrawal, which were subsequently seized by the Taliban.
Ahead of his inauguration on January 21, Trump warned that if the Taliban did not return U.S. military equipment, he would cut future financial assistance to Afghanistan.
The Taliban has not publicly responded to Trump, but a source told Radio Azadi that the group “will not give even a single bullet back to the United States.”
Since the withdrawal of foreign forces, the United States has channeled around $3 billion through the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations to help humanitarian programs in Afghanistan.
Copyright (c) 2025. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
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