The Joe Biden’s administration has placed a freeze on Afghan government funds held in US bank accounts.
According to two persons familiar with the situation, this directive prevented the Taliban from accessing billions of money kept in US banks.
In this picture taken on August 13, 2021, Taliban fighters are pictured in a vehicle along the roadside in Herat, Afghanistan’s third biggest city, after government forces pulled out the day before following weeks of being under siege. (Photo by – / AFP)
An administration official said Tuesday that the US froze roughly $9.5 billion in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank and halted cash shipments to the country in an effort to prevent a Taliban-led government from receiving the funds.
According to the person, any central bank assets held by the Afghan government in the United States will not be available to the Taliban, which is still on the Treasury Department’s sanctions list.
On Monday, Ajmal Ahmady, the acting CEO of Da Afghan Bank (DAB), the country’s central bank, tweeted that he learnt on Friday that dollar shipments would be halted as the US attempted to prevent the Taliban from gaining access to the funds. DAB’s assets are $9.5 billion, with a large portion of that in accounts with the New York Federal Reserve and other US-based financial institutions.
The Taliban are unable to obtain finances due to US sanctions. According to two people acquainted with the situation, the great majority of DAB’s assets are not now held in Afghanistan.
Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen and officials from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, according to the Washington Post, made the decision.
Over the weekend, the State Department was thought to be participating in conversations, with White House officials keeping an eye on the situation.
“Any Central Bank assets the Afghan government has in the United States would not be made available to the Taliban,” an administration official said in a statement.
The officials talked on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss unreleased government policy.
According to the International Monetary Fund, Afghanistan’s central bank had $9.4 billion in reserve assets as of April. This represents around a third of the country’s annual economic output. According to one source acquainted with the situation, the great majority of such reserves are not currently kept in Afghanistan. Among them, the United States holds billions of dollars, albeit the exact quantity is unknown.
White House and Treasury Department spokespeople declined to comment on the procedure for withholding the payments or the future of US aid to Afghanistan. A spokesperson with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which is said to be holding bulk of the money, likewise declined to comment.
