US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has threatened to offer large cash rewards for information on the leaders of the radical Taliban movement if the information that they are holding American hostages is confirmed.

"I just heard that the Taliban are holding more American hostages than reported. If true, we will have to immediately offer a very large reward for their key leaders, possibly even larger than we offered for [terrorist Osama] bin Laden," Rubio wrote in X. The head of the US State Department did not indicate where he obtained intelligence about the hostages. He also did not explain under what conditions the mentioned rewards could be paid.

The government of Afghanistan, formed by the Taliban, announced earlier this week that it had exchanged American citizens located in the country for an Afghan citizen serving a life sentence in the United States.