Afghanistan
Mine Ban Policy
Policy
Afghanistan acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty on 11 September 2002, becoming a State Party on 1 March 2003.
The Taliban seized power in August 2021 and renamed the country the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
Afghanistan enacted national implementing legislation for the Mine Ban Treaty in September 2018, which prohibits the “production, importation, transportation, export, preservation, using, and destruction of anti-personnel mines.”[1]
Afghanistan has provided seventeen Article 7 transparency reports for the Mine Ban Treaty since 2003, most recently in May 2021.
Under the previous Taliban regime (1996–2001), Afghanistan did not participate in the 1996–1997 Ottawa Process which created the Mine Ban Treaty, in part due to lack of clarity over the status of the country’s representation at the United Nations (UN).
Since 2003, Afghanistan has participated in every meeting of the treaty, most recently the Nineteenth Meeting of States Parties, held virtually in November 2021.[2]
In December 2021, Afghanistan voted in favor of annual United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 76/26, which called for the universalization and full implementation of the Mine Ban Treaty.[3]
Production and transfer
Afghanistan is not known to have ever produced or exported antipersonnel mines. Throughout many years of armed conflict, numerous sources transferred landmines to various forces fighting in Afghanistan.
Stockpile destruction and discovered mines
Afghanistan destroyed a total of 525,504 stockpiled antipersonnel mines between 2003 and 2007.[4] It announced the completion of its Mine Ban Treaty stockpile destruction obligation in October 2007, months after its treaty-mandated deadline of 1 March 2007.[5]
Since its declaration of completion in 2007, Afghanistan has reported discovering and destroying another 85,326 antipersonnel mines. These mines were either recovered during military operations, surrendered to authorities during disarmament programs, or from arms caches found by civilians.[6] Afghanistan reported the discovery and destruction of 251 antipersonnel mines during 2020.[7]
Afghanistan has not retained any live antipersonnel mines for training in mine detection, clearance, or destruction techniques. It uses inert mines in training, which have had their fuzes removed and destroyed and are no longer capable of being used.[8]
Use
The former Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) are not known to have used antipersonnel mines since the country became a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty in 2003.
Over the past 20 years, Taliban forces have used antipersonnel mines—often of an improvised nature—across the country, despite pledging not to do so in 1998.[9]
The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant-Korasan Province (ISIL-KP), a non-state armed group (NSAG), used improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in 2021–2022.[10]
[1] The regulation is contained in an annex to the Law on Firearms, Ammunitions, and Explosive Materials. Annex No. 1 of the Law on Firearms, Ammunition and Explosive Materials, 5 September 2018. Previously, Afghanistan reported that the Ministry of Defense instructed all military forces “to respect the comprehensive ban on antipersonnel mines and the prohibition on use in any situation by militaries or individuals.” Afghanistan Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 Report (for calendar year 2008), Form A. In April 2016, Afghanistan wrote that, “Afghanistan has [a] long time back drafted a law as an instrument for the implementation of Article 9 of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention and Convention on Cluster Munitions.” Afghanistan Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 Report (for calendar year 2015), Form A. See, Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 Database.
[2] Representatives of Afghanistan participated in every Mine Ban Treaty meeting since 2003, except the Third Review Conference in Maputo in June 2014, as its delegation was denied a transit visa en-route. Afghanistan’s Ambassador Suraya Dalil was president of the Seventeenth Meeting of States Parties, held in Geneva in November 2018.
[3] “Implementation of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction,” UNGA Resolution 76/26, 6 December 2021.
[4] Afghanistan Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 Report (for calendar year 2013), Form G. The number of stockpiled mines Afghanistan had destroyed at the time it declared completion of the program lacked clarity. See, ICBL, Landmine Monitor Report 2009: Toward a Mine-Free World (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, October 2009), pp. 99–100.
[5] In April 2007, Afghanistan informed States Parties that while it had destroyed 486,226 stockpiled antipersonnel mines, two depots of antipersonnel mines still remained in Panjsheer province, about 150km north of Kabul. Provincial authorities did not make the mines available for destruction in a timely fashion. For details on the destruction program and reasons for not meeting the deadline, see, ICBL, Landmine Monitor Report 2007: Toward a Mine-Free World (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, October 2007), pp. 89–90; and ICBL, Landmine Monitor Report 2008: Toward a Mine-Free World (Ottawa: Mines Action Canada, October 2008), pp. 79–80.
[6] The types and number of mines destroyed in each location, as well as the dates of destruction, have been recorded in detail. See, Afghanistan Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 Report (for calendar year 2020), Form G.
[7] Afghanistan Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 Report (for calendar year 2020), Form B. The report states that 251 antipersonnel mines manufactured in China, the former Czechoslovakia, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, the former Soviet Union, and the United States (US), were seized or recovered during 2020.
[8] This has been reported in Form D of Afghanistan’s Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 reports, each year since 2012.
[9] Before 2001, the Taliban pledged not to use landmines on several occasions. In October 1998, its then-supreme leader, Mullah Muhammed Omer, proclaimed a comprehensive ban on antipersonnel mines. He described use of landmines as an “un-Islamic and anti-human act,” which the Taliban “strongly condemns.” The statement explicitly endorsed the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty and declared a national “ban on the production, trade, stockpiling and use of landmines.” Statement of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan on the Problem of Landmines, 6 October 1998, republished in full in ICBL, Landmine Monitor Report 1999: Toward a Mine-Free World (New York: Human Rights Watch, April 1999).
[10] United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), “Human Rights in Afghanistan: 15 August 2021–15 June 2022,” July 2022, pp. 9–12.