• Foreign & Public Diplomacy
• United States
• Afghanistan
• Michael Kugelman

March 26, 2025, 5:27 PM View Comments ()

Last Thursday, the Taliban released U.S. citizen George Glezmann after more than two years of captivity. His release came on the same day that Adam Boehler, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, and Zalmay Khalilzad, a former top U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, made an unannounced visit to Kabul—the first known visit by U.S. officials to Afghanistan since 2021.

Afghanistan announced on Sunday that the United States had lifted bounties on three Taliban leaders who were members of a faction called the Haqqani network, a U.S.-designated terror group that targeted U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Washington has not commented on the move, but Sirajuddin Haqqani—the most senior of the three—no longer appears on the U.S. State Department’s Rewards for Justice website.

These developments suggest a significant change in the U.S. approach to the Taliban regime since the group retook power in 2021. U.S. officials have periodically engaged with Taliban leaders, including two days of face-to-face meetings in Doha, Qatar, in 2023, and the two sides negotiated earlier deals to release captive U.S. citizens.

The Trump administration’s new tack can be attributed to its transactionalism. Its limited objectives in Afghanistan include the release of remaining captive U.S. citizens and the return of U.S.-made weapons. There are other things that the White House may want later, such as assistance on counterterrorism.

Read more in today’s South Asia Brief: Trump Quietly Ups U.S. Engagement With the Taliban