Taliban reject ICC arrest warrant as ‘politically motivated’
Taliban reject ICC arrest warrant as ‘politically motivated’/node/2587664/world
Taliban reject ICC arrest warrant as ‘politically motivated’
The International Criminal Court prosecutor said on Thursday he had applied for arrest warrants for two Taliban leaders in Afghanistan including supreme spiritual leader Haibatullah Akhundzada
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Updated 24 January 2025
AFP
Taliban reject ICC arrest warrant as ‘politically motivated’
Prosecutor said he was seeking warrants against senior Taliban leaders in Afghanistan over the persecution of women
Updated 24 January 2025
AFP
Kabul: Afghanistan’s Taliban government said on Friday an arrest warrant sought by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for its leaders was “politically motivated.”
It comes a day after the ICC chief prosecutor said he was seeking warrants against senior Taliban leaders in Afghanistan over the persecution of women — a crime against humanity.
“Like many other decisions of the (ICC), it is devoid of a fair legal basis, is a matter of double standards and is politically motivated,” said a statement from the Foreign Ministry posted on social media platform X.
“It is regrettable that this institution has turned a blind eye to war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by foreign forces and their domestic allies during the twenty-year occupation of Afghanistan.”
It said the court should “not attempt to impose a particular interpretation of human rights on the entire world and ignore the religious and national values of people of the rest of the world.”
The Taliban swept back to power in 2021 after ousting the American-backed government in a rapid but largely bloodless military takeover, imposing a severe interpretation of Islamic law, or sharia, on the population and heavily restricting all aspects of women’s lives.
Afghanistan’s deputy interior minister Mohammad Nabi Omari, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, said the ICC “can’t scare us.”
“If these were fair and true courts, they should have brought America to the court, because it is America that has caused wars, the issues of the world are caused by America,” he said at an event in eastern Khost city attended by an AFP journalist.
He said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should also be brought before the court over the country’s war in Gaza, which was sparked by Hamas’ attacks in October 2023.
The ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, his former defense minister and three top Hamas leaders in November last year.
Afghanistan’s government claims it secures Afghan women’s rights under sharia, but many of its edicts are not followed in the rest of the Islamic world and have been condemned by Muslim leaders.
It is the only country in the world where girls and women are banned from education.
Women have been ordered to cover their hair and faces and wear all-covering Islamic dress, have been barred from parks and stopped from working in government offices.
ICC chief Karim Khan said there were reasonable grounds to suspect that Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani “bear criminal responsibility for the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds.”
Khan said Afghan women and girls, as well as the LGBTQ community, were facing “an unprecedented, unconscionable and ongoing persecution by the Taliban.”
“Our action signals that the status quo for women and girls in Afghanistan is not acceptable,” Khan said.
ICC judges will now consider Khan’s application before deciding whether to issue the warrants, a process that could take weeks or even months.
The court, based in The Hague, was set up to rule on the world’s worst crimes, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity.
It has no police force of its own and relies on its 125 member states to carry out its warrants — with mixed results.
In theory, this means that anyone subject to an ICC arrest warrant cannot travel to a member state for fear of being detained.
Khan warned he would soon be seeking additional arrest warrant applications for other Taliban officials.
Somali government forces end a 6-hour siege at a major prison, killing all 7 attackers
Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabab militant group that has in the past staged numerous attacks in Somalia
Updated 12 sec ago
AP AFP Adil Salahi
MOGADISHU: Somali government forces successfully ended a six-hour siege by militants at a major prison located near the president’s office in the capital, Mogadishu, killing all seven attackers, the government said Sunday.
The government said no civilian or security officers were killed in the Saturday attack, which was claimed by the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabab militant group that has in the past staged numerous attacks in Somalia.
Saturday’s attack came just hours after the federal government lifted several long-standing roadblocks in Mogadishu. The barriers had been in place for years to safeguard critical government sites, but many residents argued that they obstructed traffic and commerce.
The attack on the Godka Jilicow detention facility holding some of the group’s militants lasted for hours and epitomises a worsening situation for Somalia, a poor and unstable country in the Horn of Africa.
“The security forces succeeded in ending the terrorist attack, shooting all seven gunmen who were involved,” the Somali interior ministry said in a statement.
Local residents said they could hear sporadic gunfire for more than three hours after the assault began.
The government has not indicated how many of its security forces were killed during the incident.
A private ambulance owner, Abdulkadir Adam, said his vehicles had transported almost 25 patients from the scene to various hospitals.
A private hospital director, Abdulkadir Yousuf Abdullahi, said his facility received an unspecified number of patients, provided emergency and life-saving care, and was working on identifying the patients and connecting them to their loved ones.
Somalia’s state media reported that the militants used a vehicle disguised to look like those of the intelligence unit’s security forces.
Mogadishu had been relatively calm in recent months as government forces, backed by local militias and African Union troops, pushed Al-Shabab fighters out of several areas in central and southern Somalia.
But the country has witnessed a resurgence in attacks from the Al-Qaeda affiliated group.
The group has seized control of dozens of towns and villages since the beginning of the year, undoing nearly all governmental progress made during a 2022-2023 military campaign.
Despite the tense situation, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is pushing for the country to hold its first direct elections next year.
The head of state also visited the province of Jubaland on Sunday, where recent clashes, primarily over electoral disagreements, have occurred between the army and regional forces.
Typhoon Matmo strengthens, prompts China to evacuate 347,000
Flights, public transport, and businesses have been shut down since Saturday in preparation for the storm
Updated 20 min 40 sec ago
AP
BANGKOK: Typhoon Matmo strengthened Sunday in China, prompting the government to evacuate some 347,000 people from the southern provinces of Guangdong and Hainan.
The typhoon had maximum sustained wind speeds of 151 kph on Sunday morning, according to China’s National Meteorological Center. It hit Zhanjiang in Guangdong around mid-afternoon Sunday. The weather authority issued a red-level typhoon warning, the highest in its system.
Hainan, which is also in the pathway of the storm, canceled flights and shut down public transport and businesses starting Saturday in preparation for the storm. The province also preemptively evacuated 197,856 people, according to state media, The Paper.
Matmo directly hit the southwestern parts of Guangdong, where 151,000 people evacuated, The Paper reported. Meanwhile, local media aired footage showing large waves washing seawater onto roads in villages by the coast in Guangdong’s Zhanjiang.
Authorities are also warning of heavy rain, with rainfall expected to hit 3.93 to 9.8 inches in some parts of Guangdong and Hainan.
In the region of Macau, which is not in the typhoon’s direct path, classes and tutoring sessions were canceled due to weather conditions.
Matmao had passed through the Philippines earlier this week. While there were no reports of casualties or major damage, the storm affected more than 220,000 people in five northern agricultural plains and mountainous regions. Nearly 35,000 of them either moved to emergency shelters or houses of relatives away from landslide- or flood-prone villages, disaster-response officials said on Sunday. The storm will then move westward and north, toward northern Vietnam and China’s Yunnan province.
Bangladesh deploys warships to protect prized hilsa fish
The defense force’s Inter-Service Public Relations said in a statement that 17 navy warships and patrol helicopters had been deployed to enforce the ban and protect the fish
Updated 24 min 35 sec ago
AFP
DHAKA: Bangladesh’s defense force said it has deployed warships and patrol aircraft as part of a special surveillance operation to protect a prized fish from illegal fishing during its spawning season.
The herring-like hilsa, Bangladesh’s national fish and a much-loved delicacy in West Bengal in neighboring India, return from the Bay of Bengal to rivers each year to lay eggs.
Bangladeshi authorities said on Saturday they had imposed a three-week ban on fishing from Oct. 4-25 to safeguard the spawning areas.
The defense force’s Inter-Service Public Relations said in a statement that 17 navy warships and patrol helicopters had been deployed to enforce the ban and protect the fish.
“The warships and state-of-the-art maritime patrol aircraft have been conducting round-the-clock surveillance to prevent the intrusion of domestic and foreign fishermen into the deep sea,” it said.
Millions in Bangladesh depend on the fish, which can cost up to 2,200 taka ($18.40) a kilogram in Dhaka.
Indian fishing fleets trawl the brackish waters of the River Ganges and its vast delta, feeding demand in the megacity of Kolkata and the wider state of West Bengal, which has a population of more than 100 million people.
Overfishing to meet such demand can deplete stocks as the hilsa return to spawn.
Environmental experts say fish stocks have also been hit by changes to the ecologically sensitive and low-lying deltas, threatened by rising seas driven by climate change.
However, they also fear the ships could disturb the spawning hilsa at a critical time.
Md Abdul Wahab, former head of the Eco Fish project at WorldFish, told AFP the hilsa needed “calm and undisturbed waters for spawning” and suggested the use of drones instead.
The Bangladesh government has allocated 25 kilograms of rice per fishing family to compensate for the ban during the spawning period.
Some said that was not enough.
“These three weeks are very difficult for fishermen, as we have no other means of survival,” said Sattar Majhi, a 60-year-old fisherman.
Frankly Speaking: Outcomes of the Munich Leaders Meeting in AlUla
Munich Security Conference CEO believes optimism at AlUla stems from governments finally acting to address the Gaza crisis
Benedikt Franke says double standards and lack of resilience threaten global security, urging Europe to foster real inclusion
Updated 24 min 44 sec ago
Arab News
RIYADH: Benedikt Franke, vice-chair and CEO of the Munich Security Conference, painted a picture of optimism at the recent Munich Leaders Meeting in AlUla, ֱ — a pivotal gathering set against the backdrop of US President Donald Trump’s latest Gaza peace plan.
The session not only addressed urgent questions facing the Middle East and North Africa but was also a watershed moment for the MSC’s evolution from its Euro-Atlantic roots to a platform engaging regional and global partners on their own terms.
The Sept. 30 to Oct. 2 meeting in AlUla unfolded as Trump unveiled his 20-point peace plan, which has divided opinion throughout the Middle East and the world, generating widespread debate. Franke, however, was struck by the response of participants.
“The thing I was most surprised by was the optimism in the room,” Franke told Katie Jensen, host of the Arab News current affairs program “Frankly Speaking” following his Saudi visit.
“I think people are fed up with the status quo. They believe that any plan is better than having no plan and that this plan is the best that we’ve seen for a while.
“Everyone knows that it’s not perfect. Everyone knows the devil is in the detail. But I do believe that a lot of people are grateful to President Trump for stopping to admire the problem and putting some pressure on both sides.”
Benedikt Franke, vice chairman & chief executive officer at Munich Security Conference. (Screengrab from AN video)
Trump’s proposal seeks to place Gaza under international supervision — sidestepping both Hamas and unilateral Israeli control — and transfers oversight of civilian administration and reconstruction to outside actors.
Unlike previous frameworks, Trump’s approach relies on external authorities rather than trusted regional or UN agencies, raising the stakes for diplomatic risk-taking.
“Frankly Speaking” host Jensen pressed Franke about persistent rumors of rifts between the political and military wings of Hamas, asking whether these fissures posed risks for the plan’s viability. Franke was pragmatic.
“There are disputes on all sides,” he said. “We’ve seen the same within the Israeli government, where one side wasn’t quite as happy with the plan as the other. But I guess that’s just the nature of such a complex attempt to resolve such a complex conflict.”
He cautioned against expecting unity. “If you ask me for my personal opinion or that of the Munich Security Conference, I think we would have preferred for the UN system to be used for this.
“The plan reinvents a lot of things that we’ve already invented many, many decades ago with the Blue Helmets, the Department for Peacekeeping Operations ... But I do understand that both sides didn’t want that. And, so, I think we are now stuck with the second-best option.”
The AlUla summit was not only notable for its substance, but for its symbolism: The first MSC regional meeting in the Kingdom, gathering prominent Saudi officials such as Minister of Foreign Affairs Prince Faisal bin Farhan, Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, and Minister of Economy and Planning Faisal Al-Ibrahim, alongside a diverse array of international delegates.
“I’m grateful to the Saudi government, the French government, and all these other governments that are getting and keeping involved in this conflict,” said Franke, referencing the Saudi-French push to realize the two-state solution.
“They could turn elsewhere. They could let this hot potato drop, and they are not. So, that actually made me come back from Saudi pretty optimistic.”
That optimism, however, is tempered by deep roots of mistrust and complexity. “This is nothing that will come anytime soon,” he said, referring to the latest Gaza peace process.
“This will be a complicated process. This will be a process in which the Palestinians need to show true leadership and in which the Israelis need to show true leadership.”
Benedikt Franke, vice chairman & CEO at the Munich Security Conference, being interviewed by Katie Jensen, host of the Arab News current affairs program “Frankly Speaking”. (Screengrab from AN video)
Pressed on whether the MSC will now focus more on the Middle East, Franke was unequivocal. “You will see a much stronger focus on conflicts like Gaza, Sudan ... Yemen — we had good sessions on the Red Sea in Yemen. You’ll see a stronger focus on those.”
This includes “more regional themes and participants at the main conference,” he added. The strategic shift comes as the MSC faces criticism from some in the region — and beyond — about the neglect of non-European crises.
Accusations that the conference is too Eurocentric are not uncommon. But Franke insists the MSC’s identity is evolving.
“A quick look at our website, a quick look at the list of events that we’ve done over the past 24 months will clearly show that we’ve been to places like Rio de Janeiro, Joburg, Nairobi, AlUla — we’ve been to Ukraine once,” he said.
“And, so, I don’t think that’s fair, but you’re absolutely right. The Munich Security Conference was founded 60-odd years ago as a transatlantic gathering. We are transatlantic in heart, still, but we’re global by necessity.”
On representation, the MSC has moved forward — but Franke admits progress remains uneven.
“We actually have an entire unit here within the MSC that tries to ensure diversification,” he said. “We have done incredibly well, but we’re nowhere near where we want to be.
“Different from many, if not most other forums, more than half of our speakers and moderators are female. Almost one-third of our speakers and moderators come from the Global South.
“When I started, we used to be a completely white male German outfit. We no longer are. And we actually sometimes feel like a very diverse startup.
“Yes, we do have several employees from the Arab world. We have this Middle East consultation group where the lead is a wonderful lady from Egypt with people who hold several passports.
“Is this enough? No, but I do believe that the fact that for the first time we will have a non-German chair with Jens Stoltenberg joining us ... will make it much easier for us to hire people from across the world.”
Benedikt Franke (right), vice chairman & CEO at the Munich Security Conference, with Katie Jensen, host of the Arab News current affairs program “Frankly Speaking”. (Screengrab from AN video)
The conversation shifted to some of the harsher criticisims leveled by Trump — namely, virtue signalling by Europe on Ukraine while still buying Russian gas, or double standards in the application of climate pledges and international law.
Franke did not equivocate. “This is a two-edged sword. First of all, President Trump is right on that point. And he is certainly right that we have had a tendency and sometimes still do have a tendency to be traveling across the world with a moral sort of plan that we need to persuade people to follow our values and that everyone else’s values are a little more problematic.”
He listed examples. “It’s not just us buying Russian gas via India. It’s also us treating the ICC verdict against (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu differently from the one against Putin. It is us not keeping our climate financing promises. It is us treating the sovereignty of Mauritius differently from the sovereignty of Ukraine. And we need to address that.”
Pressed by Jensen, Franke acknowledged these were mistakes, highlighting US Vice President J.D. Vance’s speech at February’s MSC, in which he called out Europe’s overdependence on US defense. But Franke also noted that change comes slowly.
“There are many silver linings out there ... The Europeans, I think, gave a pretty impressive answer, not in words, but by massively increasing their defense budgets, by massively investing in resilience, and by making some of the structural changes that we’ve pushed ahead of us for so many years and decades. So, stuff is moving in Europe, and it is due to that speech, too.”
The interview’s regional focus sharpened further as Jensen asked about US reliability as a security partner — particularly after the Israeli strike against Hamas negotiators in Doha on Sept. 9, which triggered Trump’s executive order stating that any strike on Qatar would be treated as an attack on America, and Netanyahu’s forced public apology.
Franke called the executive order “an important step. It certainly helps to restore credibility within Qatar. And I do believe it’s part of a broader deal to persuade Hamas, both the political office and the fighters on the ground, to now finally accept that they need to return the hostages, that they need to engage in a mediated solution, and that they can no longer do what they’re doing on the back of the normal Palestinian population.”
Although the executive order could just as easily be revoked with the strike of a pen by a future US administration, Franke said: “Let’s not forget that Qatar houses one of the biggest military bases there is in the region. That in and of itself should be quite a security guarantee.
“I think everyone was surprised that it wasn’t. And the fact that Trump got Prime Minister Netanyahu to apologize to the Qataris, and, actually, not behind closed doors, but for everyone to see, I think that was a hugely important move.”
Turning to the broader international order, Franke was honest about systemic failure. “The UN system, our entire global governance architecture, was built in the late 1940s of the last century to solve the problems of the late 1920s. This system is no longer fit for purpose, and we need to reform it, and we need to ensure that the Global South has a stronger say in that.”
Meanwhile, “the West is no longer resilient, if we ever were. We get caught off balance almost daily by authoritarian governments, authoritarian actors, criminal actors from across the world. And I do believe that we need to get out of this downward spiral of us failing to address these structural deficiencies and not addressing our vulnerabilities and dependencies.”
The discussion switched to modern threats: cyberattacks, artificial intelligence, disinformation campaigns, and the role of big tech in global security.
“We need to ensure that tech companies are regulated in a way that in fact incentivizes them to enable the enormous positive effects of the technology they offer ... There could be great positive effects, too. And that needs to be asserted through clear regulation.”
But Franke signalled another, deeper challenge: ending what he described as “the age of impunity.”
State and non-state actors “who target democratic processes, who target societal cohesion ... must be taken to court, they will pay, they will no longer be able to use the other parts of the global governance system that they are not attacking. There are things that we can do, and we’re not doing enough of those.”
Demonstrator gestures next to a flag representing a watermelon in a protest demanding “government action to stop the genocide.
Updated 05 October 2025
Aimee Doeksen
Hundreds of thousands join pro-Palestine march in Amsterdam
Demonstrators urge tougher stance from Dutch government on Gaza war
Largest protest in Netherlands to date opposing Israel’s actions
Updated 05 October 2025
Aimee Doeksen
AMSTERDAM: The Dutch capital turned red on Sunday as an estimated 250,000 demonstrators demanded a tougher stance from the Dutch government on the Gaza war.
Demonstrators accused the government of failing to act against what they described as genocide in Gaza, calling for immediate political, economic and diplomatic sanctions against Israel.
Organizers said the march was called the Red Line because “all red lines have long been crossed,” and the Netherlands must “face the facts and can no longer look away.”
It was the largest pro-Palestine demonstration in the Netherlands since the start of the war in October 2023, and followed two rallies held earlier this summer in The Hague, the country’s political capital.
According to the organizers, around 100,000 people joined the May march and 150,000 in June. Sunday’s march was coordinated by a coalition of 134 organizations, including Amnesty International, Doctors for Gaza and Save the Children.
As pro-Palestine protests took place across Europe this weekend, the timing of the one in Amsterdam was particularly significant as national elections are set to take place at the end of October.
The organizers said “a fundamental change of course is needed,” and “as the elections draw near, it is more crucial than ever to raise our voices.”
Prime Minister Dick Schoof has said the government continues to work toward a lasting and just peace in the Middle East.
He posted on X that he is hopeful a ceasefire is now within reach thanks to US President Donald Trump’s peace plan and the mediation efforts of Qatar and Egypt.
Geert Wilders, leader of the Netherlands’ largest coalition party who is known for his anti-Islam rhetoric, criticized the protests.
He stated on X that demonstrating against Israel around the two-year mark of the Hamas attack “shows that hatred has triumphed over reason” and that such demonstrators “do not want peace.”
Demonstrators, many of whom wore red and Palestinian cultural symbols such as keffiyehs, told Arab News that they joined to express solidarity and hope.
“You feel powerless watching what’s happening in Gaza, but protesting at least offers something,” said one woman. “It feels like you’re setting something in motion.”
Another said: “It’s heartbreaking to watch our country stay silent. The government must speak out against the genocide.”
Crowds chanted slogans such as “Amsterdam says no to genocide,” “One, two, three, four, occupation no more” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
Protesters also waved Palestinian flags and carried banners reading “Nobody is free until Palestine is free” and “Stop arming Israel.”
