Photo: WAKIL KOHSAR / AFP / Getty Images
President Joe Biden signed an executive order that will allow $7 billion in frozen assets from the central bank of Afghanistan to be distributed to use them in humanitarian assistance in the country and for the victims of the terrorist attacks of the 11 of September, confirmed senior administration officials on Friday.
The funds held in the United States were frozen following the collapse of the central government in Kabul in August this year. Half of the remaining assets ($3,500 million dollars) will go to provide aid to the people of Afghanistan, where fears of mass starvation have taken hold in the months since the Taliban took power.
The $3,500 Remaining millions of dollars will be made available to relatives of the victims of the 9/11 in the United States, who have been fighting in court for compensation.
The families of the victims of the September 11 attack have been seeking financial compensation from the Taliban for years and renewed their efforts following the group’s takeover of the country this year and subsequent freezing of Afghan assets. The Biden administration has been weighing how to proceed for months.
White House officials said the $3,500 millions of dollars remaining in the US will be “subject to ongoing litigation by US victims of terrorism”.
The United Nations and various humanitarian organizations have been pressuring governments around the world, especially the United States, for months to unblock the Afghan funds that they froze after the seizure of power by the Taliban in August last year.
Before Before the Taliban seized power, the Afghan central bank had deposited $9 abroad,000 million dollars.
Of those $9,000 million dollars, $7,000 are in the US and the rest are in other countries, such as Switzerland, Germany and the United Arab Emirates, detailed the c official.
US troops left Afghanistan last 30 August (31 August in the Central Asian country) and thus put an end to a war of 20 years, the longest long US history
This war began in October 2001 after the attacks in the United States, with the mission to hunt down the then leader of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, the “brain” of the attacks of the 11 in September of that year, and punish the Taliban who had given him refuge.
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