The U.S. has raised the total bounty on offer for the capture of five senior commanders of the Haqqani network (HQN) militant group by $5 million to a total of $30 million, the State Department announced on Wednesday.
In a statement regarding its “Rewards for Justice” programme, the Department said that HQN was responsible for numerous high-profile attacks in Afghanistan, including the 19-hour attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and the nearby ISAF headquarters in September 2011.
They are also suspected of carrying out the 2008 attack against the Indian embassy in Kabul, in which 58 were killed, including two senior Indian officials, and the 2011 attack against the U.S. embassy in that city.
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In these and other cases, U.S. officials have said that the HQN was linked to Pakistan’s intelligence apparatus and have called for such support from Islamabad to be curtailed.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton designated the HQN as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation in September 2012.
This week, the U.S. appeared to be tightening the screws further against HQN when it underscored that it was offering rewards of up to $5 million each for information leading to the location of Aziz Haqqani, Khalil al-Rahman Haqqani, Yahya Haqqani, and Abdul Rauf Zakir and raising its previous reward offer of up to $5 million for information on the group’s leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, to up to $10 million.
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Sirajuddin, the son of HQN founder Jalaluddin Haqqani and the current leader of the organisation, has admitted planning the January 2008 attack on Kabul’s Serena Hotel that killed one U.S. citizen and five other people.
He was designated him as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” in March 2008.
Others ‘most wanted’ names on the U.S.’ rewards programme include Hafiz Saeed, on whose head there is a $10 million bounty for masterminding numerous plots, including the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.