Division 8 Sayed Esmatullah Asem Abdul Quddus (alias (a) Esmatullah Asem (b) Asmatullah Asem (c) Sayed Esmatullah Asem).

Title: Maulavi. Grounds for listing: (a) Deputy Minister of Preventing Vice and Propagating Virtue under the Taliban regime, (b) Secretary-General of the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) under the Taliban regime. Date of birth: Approximately 1967. Place of birth: Qalayi Shaikh, Chaparhar District, Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. Nationality: Afghan. Other information: (a) Member of the Taliban’s Supreme Council as of May 2007, (b) Believed to be in the Afghanistan/Pakistan border area, (c) Member of the Taliban Peshawar Shura, (d) Responsible for Afghan Taliban activity in Federally Administrated Tribal Areas, Pakistan as at 2008, (e) A leading expert in IED suicide attacks as of 2012. Date of UN designation: 23.2.2001.

Additional information from the narrative summary of reasons for listing provided by the Sanctions Committee:

At the time of his listing, Sayed Esmatullah Asem also served as the Secretary-General of the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) under the Taliban regime. As of May 2007, he became a member of the Taliban leadership. He was also a member of a regional Taliban council as at 2009.

Sayed Esmatullah Asem commanded a group of Taliban fighters in Chaparhar District, Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. He was a Taliban commander in Konar Province, who dispatched suicide bombers to several provinces in eastern Afghanistan as at 2007.

In late 2008, Sayed Esmatullah Asem was in charge of a Taliban staging base in the Afghanistan/Pakistan border area.