The Secretary of State, Marco Rubiothreatened on Saturday to offer rewards for Taliban leaders in Afghanistandramatically raising the tone by saying that there may be more Americans detained in the country than previously believed.
The threat occurs days after The government of Afghanistan and the United States will exchange prisoners in one of the last acts of former US President Joe Biden.
The new US chancellor issued the harsh warning through social media, in a rhetorical style strikingly similar to that of his boss, President Donald Trump.
“Just hearing that the Taliban has more American hostages than reported,” Rubio wrote in X.
“If this is true, we will have to immediately put a VERY LARGE reward on his top leaders, perhaps even larger than what we had on Bin Laden,” he said, referring to the al Qaeda leader killed by US forces in 2011.
Rubio did not describe who the other Americans may be, but there have long been accounts of missing Americans whose cases were not formally considered by the government to be unjust detentions.
In the deal with the Biden administration, the Taliban released the most well-known American detained in Afghanistan, Ryan Corbettwho had been living with his family in the country and was captured in August 2022.
He was also released William McKentyan American about whom little information has been disclosed.
The United States, in turn, freed Khan Mohammed, who was serving a life sentence in a California prison.
Mohammed was convicted of trafficking heroin and opium to the United States and accused of seeking rockets to kill American troops in Afghanistan.
The United States offered a $25 million reward for information leading to the capture or death of Osama bin Laden shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and Congress later authorized the Secretary of State to offer up to $50 million. of dollars.
No one is believed to have collected the reward for bin Laden, who was killed in a US raid in Pakistan.
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