US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stepped up the rhetoric on Saturday, threatening to place bounties on the heads of Taliban leaders in Afghanistan. He also said that more Americans could be held there than originally thought.

This threat comes just days after the Afghan Taliban and the United States exchanged prisoners as part of Joe Biden’s final act.

The new US top diplomat sent out the harsh warning on social media in a style that was strikingly similar to his boss, Donald Trump.

Rubio, writing on X, said: “Just hearing that the Taliban holds more American hostages than reported is enough to make me believe they are holding a lot more Americans.”

He said, “If this were true, he would immediately set up a VERY BIG bounty for their top leaders.” “It could be even larger than the one placed on Bin Laden, the Al-Qaeda leader who was killed by US forces back in 2011.”

Rubio didn’t specify who the other Americans might be. However, there are many accounts of Americans missing whose cases have not been formally investigated by the US Government as wrongful arrests.

The Taliban released Ryan Corbett in an agreement with the Biden Administration. Corbett had lived in Afghanistan with his family and was captured in August 2022.

Also freed was William McKenty, an American about whom little information has been released.

Khan Mohammed was freed by the United States after he served a life sentence in a California prison.

Mohammed was convicted for trafficking heroin and opium to the United States, and accused of attempting to use rockets against US troops in Afghanistan.

After the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States offered $25 million as a reward for information that led to Osama Bin Laden’s capture or death. Later, Congress authorized the Secretary of State to offer up $50 million.

It is believed that no one has collected the bounty on bin Laden. He was killed by a US raid conducted in Pakistan.

A harder line on the Taliban?

Trump is well-known for his use of threats, both in speeches and on social media. He is a critic of US foreign military interventions and said in his second inaugural speech on Monday that he aspired towards being a “peacemaker.”

In his first term as president, Trump broke the taboo of negotiating directly with the Taliban. He even proposed a summit at Camp David with the insurgents. This was done to broker a deal for the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and the end of America’s longest conflict.

Biden implemented the agreement. The Western-backed government collapsed quickly and the Taliban took power in August 2021, just after US troops had left.

Biden was criticized for the chaos that erupted in Kabul, particularly when 13 American soldiers and scores of Afghans were killed in a suicide attack at Kabul’s airport.

The Biden administration made low-level contact with Taliban government officials but did not make any progress.

Trump’s Republican Party members criticized the US’s limited engagement with the Taliban government, and in particular the humanitarian aid authorized by the Biden Administration. The Biden administration insisted that the money was intended for the urgent needs of the impoverished nation and had never been routed through the Taliban.

Rubio, on Friday, froze almost all US aid to the world.

No country has recognized the Taliban government. The Taliban has severely restricted women and girls, based on its ultra-conservative understanding of Islam.

On Thursday, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said that he is seeking arrest warrants against senior Taliban leaders for their persecution of women.