OFAC designates ISIS-K fixer. Red Cross ops chief ‘livid’ at Afghan sanctions impact
The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (‘OFAC’) says it has designated ‘Ismatullah Khalozai, an individual who has acted as a financial facilitator for the Islamic State’s Khorasan Province (ISIL-Khorasan), active in Afghanistan and commonly referred to as “ISIS-K.”’
Announcing his designation, OFAC said that Khalozai had ‘provided support to ISIS-K’s operations in Afghanistan by facilitating international financial transactions that fund human trafficking networks and facilitating the movement of foreign fighters who seek to escalate tensions in Afghanistan and the region.’
In other Afghan-related news, Dominik Stillhart, the director of operations for the International Committee of the Red Cross (‘ICRC’), has launched a blistering attack on sanctions measures, which, he says, are having a devastating impact on civilians in the country.
Following a six-day fact finding tour, Stillhart wrote in a piece published by the ICRC:
‘I am livid. Pictures viewed from afar of bone-thin children rightly elicit gasps of horror. When you’re standing in the pediatric ward in Kandahar’s largest hospital, looking into the empty eyes of hungry children and the anguished faces of desperate parents, the situation is absolutely infuriating.
‘It’s so infuriating because this suffering is man-made. Economic sanctions meant to punish those in power in Kabul are instead freezing millions of people across Afghanistan out of the basics they need to survive. The international community is turning its back as the country teeters on the precipice of man-made catastrophe.’
Sanctions on banking services, he said, ‘are sending the economy into free-fall and holding up bilateral aid. Municipal workers, teachers, and health staff haven’t been paid in five months. They walk up to two hours to work instead of taking public transportation. They have no money to buy food; their children go hungry, get dangerously thin, and then die.’
Stillhart said that the ICRC ‘is calling for a clear carve-out for impartial humanitarian organizations engaged in exclusively humanitarian activities, and for its translation into domestic legislation. It is in everyone’s interest to see humanitarian activities operating smoothly in Afghanistan.’
In late September, OFAC issued two licences to ‘facilitate the flow of humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan and other activities that support their basic human needs,’ saying: ‘Treasury will continue to work with financial institutions, international organizations, and the nongovernmental organization (NGO) community to ease the flow of critical resources, like agricultural goods, medicine, and other essential supplies, to people in need, while upholding and enforcing our sanctions against the Taliban, the Haqqani Network, and other sanctioned entities.’
Aid agencies say the licences do not go far enough to assuage compliance-related anxieties among banks and others necessary for the delivery of aid.
FOR A DEEP DIVE INTO THE SANCTIONS AND HUMANITARIAN ASPECTS OF AFGHANISTAN SEE THE RECORDING OF ALEX ZERDEN’S WEBINAR, IN ASSOCIATION WITH WORLDECR, at: https://www.worldecr.com/webinars/afghanistan-what-comes-next-for-sanctions-and-financial-crime-risk-humanitarian-assistance-and-other-challenges/
