Former Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has been removed from a United Nations Islamic State and Al-Qaeda sanctions list, according to a statement published Friday. An assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo no longer applied to Hekmatyar, the UN Security Council statement said. Hekmatyar, the leader of Islamist organization Hezb-e-Islami, was a former leader of the resistance against the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan from 1979 onwards. During the bloody civil war in the 1990s, which followed the Soviet withdrawal from the country, Hekmatyar was responsible for thousands of deaths in the capital, earning him the nickname "The Butcher of Kabul." The decision to remove Hekmatyar from the list followed a peace deal with the Afghan government signed in September and a formal request by the government to remove the names of the leaders of Hezb-e-Islami from the sanctions list.
