Biden's move to compensate Taliban victims leaves 9/11 families seething
by Joel Gehrke, Foreign Affairs Reporter |
August 19, 2022 07:00 AM
As Taliban forces rampaged across Afghanistan in the wake of the departing U.S. forces last year, they lit the fuse on a financial dispute that has rocked the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
"A year ago, the community was sort of at peace," 9/11 Justice founder Brett Eagleson told the Washington Examiner. "And we had no idea about this money, and things were better off. And there wasn’t this infighting and all these issues."
The controversy centers on Afghan central bank reserves held in the United States, a $7 billion fund stockpiled in support of the Afghan financial system's integration into global markets. The Taliban's rapid reconquest of the country left the central bank in a precarious place — independent of a government that no longer exists but vulnerable to the victorious terrorists. President Joe Biden's response to that new dynamic has dismayed Afghan citizens living through the economic crisis wrought by the collapse of Afghanistan's democracy and empowered a small group of 9/11 families represented by one of his former advisers. This led Eagleson to suspect that a “dirty inside deal with the administration” lies at the heart of an acrimonious legal dispute between many victims of Taliban terrorism.
"So no one has seen that money yet," said Eagleson. "And it's our presumption that nobody will probably see that money for at least a couple of years, if we even are allowed to see any of that money."
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/bidens-taliban-families-seething
