The Hague, Netherlands—— The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor announced on Thursday that he had requested arrest warrants for two senior Afghan Taliban officials over a crackdown on women.

Karim Khan said in a statement that he asked the judge to approve the case against the organization's top leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and the president of Afghanistan's Supreme Court Abdul Hakim Haqqani. Arrest warrants charging these individuals with gender-based persecution and crimes against humanity.

"These applications recognize that Afghan women and girls and LGBTQI+ people are facing unprecedented, unjustified and ongoing persecution by the Taliban," Khan said.

Since taking back control of the country in 2021, the Taliban have banned women from employment, access to most public places and education beyond sixth grade. Last year, Akhundzada banned building windows from viewing areas where women might sit or stand.

Human rights groups have applauded the ICC's action against the Taliban leadership.

“Their systematic violations of the rights of women and girls, including banning education and repressing those who speak out for women’s rights, are accelerating and occurring with total impunity. With no justice in sight in Afghanistan, the arrest warrant request provides some certainty of accountability important pathway to accountability," Liz Evanson, international justice director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

This is the first time in the court's history that attacks against LGBTQ+ people have been deemed crimes against humanity.

Judges at the Hague-based court approved prosecutors' request in 2022 to reopen the Afghanistan investigation. The investigation was put on hold after Kabul said it could handle it.

Khan said he wanted the investigation to be reopened because there was "no longer any prospect of a truly effective domestic investigation" in Afghanistan under Taliban rule.

However, human rights groups criticized Khan's decision to focus on crimes committed by the Taliban and the Afghan branch of the Islamic State group. He said he would "prioritize" other aspects of the investigation, such as crimes committed by Americans.

Khan's predecessor, Fatou Bensouda, received approval in 2020 to begin an investigation into alleged crimes by Afghan government forces, the Taliban, U.S. troops and U.S. foreign intelligence agents since 2002.

The decision to investigate the Americans led the previous Trump administration to impose sanctions on Bensouda, whose term ends in 2021.

There is no deadline for a judge to rule on a search warrant request, but a decision typically takes about four months. The Pre-Trial Chamber took three weeks to issue an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2023, while it took six months to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year.