ICC Unseals Arrest Warrants for Four Senior Taliban Figures Over Persecution of Women and Girls

The International Criminal Court on Monday unsealed four arrest warrants against senior Taliban figures, accusing them of crimes against humanity for the alleged persecution of women and girls in Afghanistan and publicly naming, for the first time, the movement’s education and higher-education ministers.

The suspects are Haibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban’s supreme leader; Abdul Hakim Haqqani, the Taliban’s chief justice and head of its Supreme Court; Habibullah Agha, the acting minister of education; and Neda Mohammad Nadim, the acting minister of higher education.

In a public summary, the court said: “There are reasonable grounds to believe that the four suspects are criminally responsible for having ordered, induced or solicited the crime against humanity of persecution, under article 7(1)(h) of the Rome Statute …” The alleged persecution was on gender grounds against girls, women, and other people seen as not conforming with the Taliban’s policy on gender, gender identity or expression, and on political grounds against people perceived as “allies of girls and women.” The ICC said the persecution was linked to conduct including murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and enforced disappearance.

ICC Pre-Trial Chamber II said the alleged crimes were committed in Afghanistan from Aug. 15, 2021, when the Taliban took control of Kabul, until at least Jan. 20, 2025. The chamber said the suspects, “acting on behalf of the Taliban,” implemented a governmental policy that led to the alleged widespread and systematic violations.

The move brings into public view warrants that had previously been secret. The court said Akhundzada and Haqqani’s warrants were issued under seal on July 8, 2025, and Agha and Nadim’s on Sept. 9, 2025, after the prosecutor sought them in January 2025. They were made public Monday in redacted form.

The case centers on policies that have defined Taliban rule since its return to power in August 2021, when the group began imposing escalating restrictions on women and girls. Those measures included bans on secondary and higher education, along with other limits on work and movement. The ICC’s Afghanistan investigation predates the Taliban takeover, but judges in 2022 authorized the prosecutor to resume it after the group returned to power.

Rights groups have repeatedly described the Taliban’s treatment of women and girls as systematic and discriminatory, and they welcomed the earlier warrants as a step toward accountability. Monday’s action sharpened the legal framing by the Hague-based court, which said the alleged repression amounted to criminal persecution on both gender and political grounds.

Any arrest, however, would be difficult to carry out. The ICC, a permanent war crimes and crimes against humanity court based in The Hague, has no police force and depends on states to detain suspects and transfer them to court. With the Taliban in control of Afghanistan, enforcement would rely on cooperation from governments outside the country if any of the men travel.

The Taliban has previously rejected the court’s authority. After the first warrants were disclosed in 2025, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said, “We neither recognise anything by the name of an international court nor do we consider ourselves bound by it.” Public warrants can increase diplomatic pressure and formally identify suspects, but they do not by themselves secure arrests.