Fugitive Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, fighting for 40 years, wins removal from UN sanctions list

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Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, now in his late 60s, is seen in 2015 in a video flmed at an undisclosed location. The United Nations has removed his name from a sanctions list. Photo: AP

Published: 1:09pm, 6 Feb 2017Updated: 10:05pm, 6 Feb 2017

The United Nations has removed a longtime Afghan insurgent leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, from its sanctions list, in a move to allow a peace deal between the beleaguered Afghan government and the fugitive to go forward.

President Ashraf Ghani’s government had requested the dropping of Hekmatyar’s name last year after signing the deal, regarded by some as historic because it was the first of its kind without foreign mediation.

Hekmatyar is expected to return to Kabul within weeks, putting an end to his nearly four decades of military campaigning, which involved fighting the Soviets, Afghan opponents in the civil war and the current US-led occupation.

The Afghan government is pushing to fulfil its two other main commitments with Hekmatyar: release of nearly 500 fighters and commanders of his Hezb-i-Islami party and the return of hundreds of families of the party’s members who live as refugees in Pakistan.

The UN move unfreezes his assets and lifts a travel ban.

Amin Karim (right), the representative of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and Akram Khpolwak, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's adviser on political affairs, speak during a joint press conference in Kabul. Photo: AP

Mohammad Akram Khpalwak, a senior adviser to Ghani, said a joint commission was assessing the number of Hekmatyar’s fighters and the amount of weapons they own across the country, before reintegrating them.