The ICC chief prosecutor charged the supreme leader of the Islamic Emirate, Haibatullah Akhundzada, and Judge Abdul Hakim Haqqani of persecuting Afghan women and girls. Recently, a senior Taliban official called for reopening schools for women. This and other criticisms suggest a divided leadership.

Kabul (AsiaNews) – The Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Karim Khan has requested an arrest warrant against the Taliban supreme leader and the chief justice of the Islamic Emirate, for persecuting Afghan girls and women.

In a statement, the office of Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan said that Haibatullah Akhundzada and Abdul Hakim Haqqani “bear criminal responsibility for the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds."

Now it will be up to a three-judge panel of the international court to decide in the coming months whether to issue the arrest warrant, a situation similar to that of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

This morning Akhundzada called the court's investigation "unfair, politically motivated" based on a double standard, because war crimes committed by foreign forces in Afghanistan over the last 20 years of war have not been investigated.

However, the Taliban Deputy Foreign Minister Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai urged the leaders of the Islamic Emirate to lift the restrictions on girls' education in Afghanistan.

Since returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban have abolished higher education for girls and recently closed medical vocational schools, the only venue left for women to pursue a higher education.

"We request the leaders of the Islamic Emirate to open the doors of education," said Stanikzai at a public event, reported by a local broadcaster, Tolo. “We are committing an injustice against 20 million people out of a population of 40 million, depriving them of all their rights. This is not in Islamic law, but our personal choice or nature.”

Stanikzai made similar statements in 2022 and 2023, but according to experts, this is the first time that a senior Taliban official directly addressed Haibatullah Akhundzada, who represents the hardline wing of the Taliban movement.

For analyst Tameem Bahiss, Stanikzai's criticism targets the approach imposed by the supreme leader, calling for respect for the people’s will through "the Taliban's governing council or shura".

According to Bahiss, the decision to ban girls from going to school was imposed by Akhundzada without any kind of consultation with other Taliban leaders.

Stanikzai's remarks also seem to confirm divisions within the Taliban leadership, in particular, between Akhundzada’s religious authority and the Haqqani network, which represents the more moderate and pragmatic wing of the movement.

The Haqqani network is close to al-Qaeda and has committed some of the most violent terrorist attacks during the decades of war that have characterised the recent history of Afghanistan.

Signs of tension emerged in December after the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP) killed the Minister of Refugees, Khalil Rahman Haqqani.

Akhundzada refused to appoint Ahmad Haqqani, the eldest son of the senior official killed, as the new minister, and the position has been vacant ever since.

For his part, the Taliban supreme leader summoned Taliban commanders, inviting them to Kandahar (the seat of religious power) rather than Kabul, the capital, where the Haqqani network is based, led by Sirajuddin, son of the founder, Jalaluddin Haqqani, and current Taliban Minister of the Interior.

According to a local newspaper, Hasht-e Subh, Akhundzada summoned the leaders after they reported complaints about the government to Sirajuddin Haqqani, who in early December had voiced dissatisfaction, stating, at a graduation ceremony at an Islamic school, that, “Religion should not be represented in a way that suggests it belongs solely to me, to the exclusion of others”.

His words were seen as a veiled criticism of Akhundzada, who boasts the title of "commander of the faithful" modelled after the first Muslim caliphs.

Recently, a local news agency, Amu, reported a trip by Sirajuddin Haqqani to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where he met with President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

According to some scholars, the Gulf state could mediate between Afghanistan and several other countries, like Pakistan, as tensions simmer along their shared border over the presence of armed groups, or the United States, involved in a recent prisoners’ exchange, which was facilitated, however, by Qatar.

It is possible that the visit to the UAE could be part of an attempt to mend fences between Haqqani and Akhundzada.

• afghanistan
• international criminal court
• icc
• girls
• women
• education
• haibatullah akhundzada
• abdul hakim haqqani
• sher mohammad abbas stanikzai