The United States on Monday designated Afghanistan as a ‘State Sponsor of Wrongful Detention’, accusing the ruling Taliban movement of holding Americans as leverage.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Taliban uses ‘terrorist tactics’, including kidnapping individuals for ransom or policy concessions, and warned that Afghanistan was unsafe for American travellers.
The ‘State Sponsor of Wrongful Detention’ designation places Afghanistan on a blacklist created under an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump in September targeting governments accused of ‘hostage diplomacy’.
Iran received the same designation on February 27, a day before the US and Israel attacked the Islamic Republic.
‘Hostage diplomacy needs to stop’
Rubio urged the Taliban to ‘cease the practice of hostage diplomacy forever’ and release Mahmood Habibi and Dennis Coyle, believed to be in Taliban custody.
According to Habibi’s family, the Afghan-American businessman and former head of Afghanistan’s civil aviation authority disappeared in Kabul in August 2022. However, the movement denies Habibi is in their custody.
The US State Department has offered a US$5mn reward for information leading to his return.
Coyle, an academic, was detained in January 2025.
According to Reuters, the US is also demanding the return of the remains of Paul Overby, an author who was last seen near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan in 2014.
The US is mulling restrictions on the use of American passports for travel to Afghanistan, officials told Reuters.
UN aid to Kabul
Meanwhile, US ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told a Security Council meeting that Washington is ‘deeply sceptical of their (Taliban’s) willingness to meet their international commitments or respect Afghanistan’s international obligations’.
Waltz also urged a reassessment of international assistance to Afghanistan citing the Taliban’s denial of basic rights to women.
“This council must consider carefully the funds we collectively provide for this mission’s budget, when the mission’s female national staff are not even able to go into the office to work,” he said.
Under the Taliban’s new laws, women have been banned from public life and basic freedoms.
This comes even as Afghanistan, under Taliban rule, faces one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with the World Food Programme (WFP) estimating that one-third of the population suffers from acute food shortages.
DW
