The people of Afghanistan are paying for the Taliban terrorist activities and its alliances with international terrorists.
On the 11th of February, 2022, United States President Joe Biden signed an executive order to unfreeze the $ 7 billion assets of Afghanistan that were frozen after the occupation of Afghanistan by the terrorist Taliban.
Based on the decree, from the $7 billion assets of Afghanistan in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, $ 3.5 billion will be allocated for humanitarian aid, and $ 3.5 billion will be paid to the American families of the victims of 9/11.
From Afghanistan’s $ 10 billion currency reserves, $ 7 billion is preserved in the US banks, and the rest are in Britain, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates.
Following the occupation of Afghanistan by the terrorists on the 15th of August last year, the US and the western countries froze the assets to prevent the Taliban from accessing them. This, in return, led to the downfall of the economy and the shortages of liquidity in Afghanistan’s banks.
Currency reserves refer to the sets of assets retained in the Central Banks of the countries in the forms of international currencies such as Dollar, Pound, Euros, gold, and other paper currencies.
These currency reserves are preserved in the banks based on the country’s interactions; since Afghanistan had more economic contacts with the United States for the last 20 years, a large portion of this asset used to be preserved in the US banks.
Currency reserves are the most important support of the economic system play a significant role in preserving the value of the national currency, economic system, stability, economic interactions, and economic stability worldwide.
Afghanistan’s currency reserves stocking process started in 1960 with $ 5 million and has grown to $ 900 million in two decades. Still, after an economic contraction in the 80s and 90s till the first occupation of Afghanistan by the Taliban in 1996, the figure dropped to $ 500 million.
The growth in Afghanistan’s currency reserves began post 9/11, resulting in an increase in international aid, which reached $ 3 billion in 2008, approximately $ 6 billion in 2010 and, it had reached almost $ 10 billion before the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban mercenary group on the 15th of August 2021.
The Taliban terrorist group’s negligence to peace talks, resolving Afghanistan’s crisis through dialogue and resisting to establish a national and inclusive government, despite the international pressures and the frequent calls by the internal political movements-particularly the National Resistance Front, led to the destruction of the government’s structures and institutions.
Unfortunately, this situation resulted in the fragmentation of Afghanistan’s economic system, the escalation of humanitarian crises, widespread poverty, destruction of the people’s achievements, a flood of refugees to the foreign countries, and the evaporation of the aspirations of the people of Afghanistan for a stable, prosperous, and developed country.
Additionally, the crook group has also paved the way for losing a part of the assets to compensate the 9/11 victims. It was the Taliban terrorist group t, in association with the international terrorist networks - especially al-Qaeda - that revolted against the Mujahideen Islamic Government in 1996 and entered Kabul, which resulted in the conversion of Afghanistan as the safe-haven to the international terrorists.
As a result, Bin Laden and the rest of the terrorist organization’s leaders entered Afghanistan. They began to engineer plots against the people of Afghanistan and the rest of the world, which led to the massacre and the misery of the people of Afghanistan and the 9/11 tragic incident.
Despite the Bush administration’s demand to hand over Bin Laden as the mastermind of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre, the Taliban rejected the US request and, with their political stupidity, paved the way for US intervention, and now also caused the confiscation of the people of Afghanistan’s assets. Did the Taliban not kill thousands of innocent people in suicide attacks and explosions in the last 20 years? Did the Taliban not turn Afghanistan into a base of terror? Did they not spurn the peace which is God’s command? And now, the loss of $ 3.5 billion is the result of this terrorist, dreadful, and tyrant regime’s achievement for the people of Afghanistan.
Now this terrorist group must explain to the people of Afghanistan, based on what rights and legitimacy do they rule the people violently and cruelly?
This terrorist group has stolen the people’s bread from their table, destroyed the economic system, squandered the currency reserves; they have nothing to do except terrorizing, abduction, oppression, and assaults on the people’s property and dignities.
The essential question of the people of Afghanistan from this puppet regime is whether it was worth it to accommodate Al-Qaeda and other terrorists’ networks and cooperate with them to drown a nation in blood for 30 years and deprive them of their national reserves?
This terrorist group is committed to the destruction of the people of Afghanistan. According to the reports, after the occupation of Afghanistan by the Taliban, Osama Bin Laden’s son has visited Afghanistan and met the Taliban in Kabul.
Based on a recent report by the United Nations Security Council, foreign terrorist groups from the Al-Qaeda subcontinent to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) have more freedom than in previous years; the report also adds that Osama Bin Laden’s son had visited Afghanistan in October 2021 to meet the Taliban leaders.
The report mentioned above also states that an aide to Osama Bin Laden resident of Nangarhar province has, also come to Kabul in late August 2021.
Following the occupation of Afghanistan by the Taliban, the United States and its allies froze the assets of Afghanistan to prevent the Taliban group from gaining access to this asset, the recent executive order of President Biden to unfreeze the assets demonstrate that the other countries might unfreeze the assets to speed up the humanitarian aid.
The people of Afghanistan want, as the Taliban terrorist group has not fulfilled any of their obligations to the people of Afghanistan and the international community, in the absence of an assured mechanism to prevent the Taliban from accessing the asset, It will use the money to fund, equip, and consolidate the position of their brutal regime and the other terrorist groups instead of humanitarian aids.
To prevent further deterioration of global peace and security, the people of Afghanistan call on the international community to implement the contents of the resolution 1988, the 17th of June 2011, declares the Taliban as a threat to International Peace; including freezing their assets, travel bans, and other restrictions on them.
Likewise, the operationalization of the Resolution 2255 of the UN Security Council ratified in 2015 emphasizes the closure of assets, travel bans, and arms prohibitions on Taliban-affiliated individuals, companies, and groups could reduce the group’s threats to peace and stability.
And force this group to accept a broad-based and inclusive system based on the people’s will and democratic legitimacy.
The Taliban group’s efforts to free up the assets of Afghanistan are to enable them to pay their fighter’s salaries and end the public dissatisfaction by providing some so-called services to pave the way for the spread of more terrorist activities.
Suppose an accurate, transparent, and clear mechanism is not provided to spend the money on Afghanistan’s needed and poor people.
In that case, there is the risk that the Afghan people, as they paid the price of Taliban-Al-Qaeda complicity, will pay a heavier price because of the greed of the Taliban and witness the destruction of Afghanistan’s economy.
