Most current Taliban officials aren’t subject to U.S. or U.N. sanctions and those that are routinely are granted waivers to travel – with foreign partners often covering the costs. As part of their Captured State project, the George W. Bush Institute recently launched a new report, Taliban Travel Tracker which lists in one place all the travel ban exemptions granted to sanction Taliban leaders.
In the following interview, Natalie Gonnella-Platts, director of global policy, and Albert Torres, a senior program manager of global policy at the Bush Institute, explain existing sanctions that target Taliban leadership, how these mechanisms are underutilized, and how regular exemptions undercut global efforts to affect change in Afghanistan.
“As Taliban officials jet set around the world, Afghan women and other marginalized populations are prohibited from freedom of movement, employment, education, and even public worship,” they write.
U.N. Resolution 1988 – adopted unanimously by the Security Council in 2011 – continues to impose an asset freeze, a travel ban, and an arms embargo on 135 individuals and five entities associated with the Taliban. What was the motivation behind the resolution?
Sanctions are usually imposed for human rights abuses, violations of international law, and violent activity that threatens the security of regions or the global community at large. Sanctions on the Taliban are no different.
By freezing their assets and restricting their ability to travel, U.N. Resolution 1988 hopes to isolate the Taliban enough to compel them to abandon their behavior. If successful, the resolution will deter the Taliban from engaging in support for both internal and external terrorist activity and violating human rights and lead to peace, security, and stability for Afghanistan. At least in theory.
Over time, the restraints imposed by the U.N. will impose significant pressure on their operations, ideally undermining the Taliban and making them a pariah within the international community. These restrictions include cutting off the Taliban’s revenue streams, making their funds inaccessible, and preventing them from forging strong relationships that increase their support or enhance their image.
The U.N. sanctions committee should tighten these measures, with member states implementing the restrictions, until the Taliban are incapable of fulfilling their objective of international recognition. This would either force them out of their position or force them to rectify the activity that the committee labels as sanctionable.
Before the August 2021 collapse of the Afghan Republic government, under what circumstances were listed Taliban officials granted exemptions from the travel ban, in particular? How common were such exemptions before the blanket waiver?
Circumstances then were very different than they are today, so it’s tricky to compare them. But the history is definitely important.
Approved exemptions weren’t common between 2012 and early 2019. Only a handful were listed in the 1988 Committee’s annual reports, including one in 2018 for an individual to travel to Moscow to participate in a regional meeting.
A broader travel exemption was put in place between 2019 and August 2022 at the request of a U.N. member state. It permitted select sanctioned Taliban officials to travel for longer periods of time for “ongoing peace talks,” which eventually contributed to the Doha Agreement, a joint peace agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban signed in 2020. The initial waiver was approved in April 2019 and granted 11 individuals a broader travel exemption for nine months. This exemption was then reviewed and extended every 60 to 90 days until August 2022. During that time, the exemption was also expanded to cover additional individuals and included a “limited-asset freeze” waiver.
In August 2022, the U.N. waiver that had allowed 13 Afghan Taliban officials to travel abroad expired. What can you say about that waiver and the inability of the Security Council to come to an agreement on the topic after that point?
Since the Taliban returned to power, they have eagerly embraced the use of widespread oppression and brutality. And their institutionalized persecution via gender apartheid is one of the most egregious violations of human rights in the world today.
Unfortunately, beyond condemnation and multinational support for nonrecognition, international influencers have taken little action to hold the Taliban accountable for their growing assault of the Afghan people.
One exception occurred in mid-2022 when the blanket exemption expired as Ireland blocked the automatic renewal. In the lead-up to its expiration, competing proposals submitted by the United States and Russia/China created a stalemate among Security Council members. The United States and allied members of the Security Council wanted to significantly limit the scope of the exemption in response to the Taliban’s persecution of Afghan women and other vulnerable populations. Unsurprisingly, Taliban enablers Russia and China argued against notable changes, and a Chinese spokesperson even cited the position of the United States and other Western countries as “counterproductive.”
With the failure to reach consensus, Ireland (which at the time held a nonpermanent Security Council seat) had set in motion a more pragmatic approach by objecting to the continuation of blanket exemptions. Inspired by courageous Afghan advocates who condemned the hypocrisy of the exemptions Ireland rationalized, “If Afghan women cannot travel, neither should the Taliban.”
Not surprisingly, this didn’t sit well with Taliban leaders, who continue to demand an end to targeted sanctions in their entirety as one of their top priorities.
Ireland’s stance from 2022 warrants recognition as one of the most prominent examples of moral courage by a U.N. member state in response to Taliban atrocities over the last three years. Sadly, these examples remain few and far between.
It also shows that in the face of limited options, global coordination matters immensely when it comes to fully enforcing and expanding targeted sanctions. Moral courage isn’t simply altruistic; it makes a difference in holding tyrants accountable for their actions.
Your research indicates that sanctioned Taliban leaders have been granted exemptions since August 2022 to travel abroad “nearly four dozen times for both personal and official reasons.” Where do they travel and why?
As we document throughout our Captured State project and the newly launched Taliban Travel Tracker, sanctioned Taliban leaders are actively traveling for both official and personal reasons. This includes international events, bilateral meetings, religious observances, and personal medical care.
Russia and China have regularly invited Taliban leaders to attend conferences, trainings, and regional meetings – and covered their travel costs in some instances.
Many senior Taliban leaders have visited Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar for personal care or meetings. Saudi Arabia has hosted a number of Taliban officials – including Sirajuddin Haqqani – for religious pilgrimages. Haqqani leads the designated foreign terrorist organization the Haqqani network and is wanted by the FBI.
Other exemptions have been used for participation in international events, such as the 2024 Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) meeting in Cameroon. This is another example of Taliban travel that was funded by an external entity – in this case, the OIC.
On several recent occasions, senior Taliban officials subject to 1988 Committee sanctions have traveled abroad without an exemption, with little scrutiny, and with limited, if any, repercussions. Examples include, but are not limited to, travel to Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan.
Yet most current Taliban officials aren’t presently subject to U.S. or U.N. sanctions. The last time the U.N. added names to its list was in 2015. As result, Taliban officials continue to freely travel for high profile events, official meetings (including with designated terrorist groups), and personal benefit. Destinations have included a wide array of countries in regions like Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.
As Taliban officials jet set around the world, Afghan women and other marginalized populations are prohibited from freedom of movement, employment, education, and even public worship.
As noted above, only 135 individuals are subject to the travel ban. How significant is travel by non-sanctioned Taliban members?
Travel by non-sanctioned Taliban members is one of the biggest lapses in the current U.N. sanctions regime. This loophole is being exploited by the Taliban to elevate their visibility and perception of legitimacy on the global stage.
By taking advantage of this gap, the Taliban are able to engage in diplomatic relations with countries that share their ideological or political beliefs, forging economic, security, and diplomatic agreements that undermine international security and the rights of Afghans.
As an example, the Taliban are actively lobbying U.N. members for counterterrorism support, according to U.N. reports, even as the Taliban harbor organizations recognized as terrorist organizations by much of the global community.
To ensure that U.N. sanctions are truly effective, it’s important to enforce comprehensive sanctions on all Taliban members for all forms of diplomatic engagement, including travel.
How can the international community leverage the Taliban leadership’s desire to travel – for political and personal reasons alike – to affect change in Afghanistan?
To truly hold the Taliban accountable, countries should stop hosting them or funding their travel, as doing so falsely implies recognition of their legitimacy as the government of Afghanistan.
It’s important for the international community to unite in acknowledging the abuses committed by the Taliban and their destabilizing influence in the region and beyond. Continuing to allow sanctioned and unsanctioned travel for Taliban members only reinforces the status quo and discourages any meaningful change from their side.
Rather than engaging with them, the international community should intensify the isolation of the Taliban with clear goals that rectify these violations. For sanctions to work, sanctions must be driven by clear and tangible objectives. Without them, the international community lacks a framework to measure sanctions’ impact. By establishing clear short-term goals, sanctions can create long-term change in Afghanistan. As these long-term changes develop, the sanctions committee could gradually reduce some of the pressure, fostering an exchange that ultimately promotes security and stability for the Afghan people and Afghanistan. There should be no exceptions if the Taliban remain uncooperative.
However, the Taliban should be held accountable to the fullest extent possible or else the international community risks leaving open an opportunity for the Taliban to continue their abuses or regress in the future. So there is an urgent need to expand current sanctions.
The Taliban’s violation of human rights is no secret, nor is the rampant corruption within the country. Both provide opportunities for the international community to invoke Global Magnitsky sanctions, which are sanctions that are used specifically for cases involving corruption and gross human rights abuses, against the Taliban based on determinations made by the Security Council and U.N. member states.
If left unaddressed, the violations of human rights and the corruption will continue to severely impact Afghans and international security.
If the Taliban want to travel abroad and engage with the international community, they must first correct these abuses. Their desire for legitimacy should make them more than willing to comply.
