Marco Rubio Signals End of US ‘Honeymoon’ with Taliban

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Taliban at US Secretary of State Marco Rubio Image credit X.com

Taliban at US Secretary of State Marco Rubio Image credit X.com

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US Warns of Raising Taliban Bounty for Holding American Hostages

By Raisina Correspondent

New Delhi, January 26: The US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has signalled end of a phase of buying peace with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Rubio said that the Taliban are holding more American hostages than what was earlier believed.

“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 (Osama) Bin Laden (the former head of Al Qaeda),” said Rubio in a post on X.

Specific numbers of American hostages currently held by the Taliban are not known. On the watch of Joe Biden, predecessor of incumbent US President Donald Trump, the US had made a hasty retreat from Afghanistan in 2021.

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“Despite a $10 million bounty on Sirajuddin Haqqani’s head and his inclusion on the FBI’s most-wanted list, the Taliban have received significant sums of American taxpayer dollars over the past four years while continuing to hold American hostages, including George Glezmann and Mahmood Habibi,” said Arash Yaqin, a security analyst, in response to Rubio’s comment.

Glezmann is an American, who is held as a hostage. He was travelling in Kabul as a tourist when he was taken hostage.

Reports said that the Taliban have been negotiating exchange of prisoners by holding the American hostages. Four days ago, the CNN reported a prisoner swap deal in the last days of Biden in the office.

The Taliban released two Americans hostages — Ryan Corbett and William McKenty. In exchange, the US released Afghan Taliban member Khan Mohammed. He had been convicted in 2008 on narco-terrorism charges.

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“Maybe if Biden hadn’t handed Afghanistan to the Taliban on a silver platter, we wouldn’t be dealing with this mess. The Taliban’s hostage-taking is just one more reminder of what happens when you empower extremists,” said Mariam Solaimankhil, an Afghanistan leader who now lives in exile.

She also stated that the “Afghan women, men, and now Americans are paying the price. This isn’t new – it’s the consequence of abandoning an entire nation to extremists”.

While the exact number of American hostages held by the Taliban is not known, Trump in his first term had met with a number of failures in Afghanistan. South Asia expert Iqbal Chand Malhotra in his book The Nukes, the Jihad, the Hawals and Crystal Meth has given accounts of Trump failure in Afghanistan due to the sabotage by Pakistan.

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