The ICC Unsealed Four Taliban Warrants. Two Had Been Secret for a Year.

The International Criminal Court unsealed four arrest warrants against senior Taliban figures on Monday, 5 October 2026, accusing them of the crime against humanity of persecution on gender and political grounds in Afghanistan.

The four named are Taliban Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada, Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani, Education Minister Habibullah Agha and Higher Education Minister Neda Mohammad Nadim.

The warrants were not issued together. Warrants for Akhundzada and Haqqani were made public in July 2025.

ICC judges found reasonable grounds to believe all four were criminally responsible for ordering, inducing or soliciting persecution under Article 7(1)(h) of the Rome Statute. The alleged conduct spans at least 15 August 2021 to at least 20 January 2025.

The court described two categories of victims. On gender grounds, it cited girls, women and people nonconforming with Taliban policy on gender, gender identity or expression. On political grounds, it cited people perceived as "allies of girls and women."

That second category is the less-noticed half of the case. It reaches beyond the decrees themselves to anyone the Taliban treated as supporting women and girls — a charge that turns perception, not just policy, into the basis for criminal responsibility.

Judges cited serious violations of fundamental rights and freedoms of all civilians, including murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and enforced disappearances, while noting that women and girls were disproportionately targeted because of their gender. They also cited restrictions on education, freedom of movement and freedom of expression.

The warrants name the men who run Afghanistan's de facto government. The open question is enforcement: whether any state acts on the warrants, and what the unsealing changes for Afghans inside the country.

- https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/10/1168521 - https://www.jurist.org/news/2026/10/icc-unseals-warrants-of-senior-taliban-officials-accused-of-persecuting-women-in-afghanistan/ - https://www.dw.com/en/icc-unseals-taliban-leaders-warrants-over-persecuting-women/a-79556631 - https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/icc-confirms-middle-east-eye-reporting-afghanistan-arrest-warrants