US seizes control of $7 billion in assets from Afghanistan

In a very unusual maneuver, Joe Biden signed a decree on Friday allowing him to take control of the assets of the Afghan central bank deposited in the United States, approximately 7 billion dollars, which he wants to reserve half for families of victims. of September 11.

The American president, using the “extraordinary economic powers” given to him by a 1977 law, intends to transfer these assets to a blocked account of the Federal Reserve of New York, a public institution, the White House said.

“The theft and seizure of the Afghan people’s money held/frozen by the United States represents the lowest level of human and moral decay of a country and a nation”, reacted on Twitter Mohammad Naeem, Taliban spokesperson.

The assets of central banks are most often financial securities, currencies or gold.

Joe Biden wants half of the sum to be set aside for compensation claims filed in particular by families of victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Deora Bodley, a 20-year-old college student, was the youngest of 40 passengers and crew to die when hijacked Flight 93 crashed into a field in Pennsylvania.

His aunt, Sandra Bodley, took offense to Joe Biden’s decision, stressing that “the Afghan people are not responsible for 9/11”.

Afghanistan is “devastated (…) and all available funds should be dedicated to helping Afghans”, she added.

Joe Biden wants to devote the other part of the reserves to humanitarian aid for Afghanistan, but which would be paid in such a way that the money does not fall into the hands of the Taliban, explained the White House.

“It is very important to be able to both take $3.5 billion and ensure that it is used for the benefit of the Afghan people”, and also to guarantee that families of victims of terrorism “can hear” in front of the American federal justice, explained a senior official of the White House during a press conference.

Clearly, it is a question of setting aside approximately 3.5 billion dollars pending the outcome of the legal proceedings brought by these families, who are demanding the seizure of Afghan assets.

– “Complicated” –

The senior US official, who wished to remain anonymous, acknowledged that this set of operations orchestrated by the White House was “legally complicated”, and argued that Friday’s announcement was only the beginning of a procedure which should last for months.

The path chosen by the American president, which sees the United States taking possession of the assets of another state, is arousing many controversies, at a time when Afghanistan is experiencing a serious humanitarian crisis.

The Taliban have demanded to take control of the reserves of the Afghan central bank, and Russia in particular has also urged the United States to release these assets.

In total, the gross reserves of the Afghan Central Bank stood at the end of April 2021 at 9.4 billion dollars, according to the International Monetary Fund.

This sum, deposited before the Taliban regained power last August, is held mainly abroad, and for the most part in the United States.

Certainly aware of the controversies that the decision will not fail to arouse, the officials of the White House assured that these reserves of the Afghan central bank “come from the continuous and significant assistance (to Afghanistan, editor’s note) of the United States and other international donors for two decades”.

The American executive also recalled that the United States was already the main supplier of aid to Afghanistan, and assured that this bilateral aid remained separate from the procedure for freezing the assets of the Afghan central bank.

“This decree will allow a substantial part of Afghanistan’s reserves to be kept for the benefit of the Afghan people, but we understand that Afghanistan’s economic problems, exacerbated by the Taliban takeover, cannot be solved. in a simple way,” the White House said in a statement.