The United States provided more than $8 billion to Afghanistan from August 2021 to January 2023.
Kabul, March 22 - Sangar, Farzam Kazemi. This is reported by SIGAR (Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction) in a report published in the media and shows that the United States is the main investor in the Taliban government.
In the year and a half since the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the United States has been actively involved in the affairs of Afghanistan, the report says, and since then it has provided more than $8.2 billion in aid to the country and Afghan refugees.
“This includes more than $2 billion, mainly for humanitarian aid and development in Afghanistan, and more than $3.5 billion for the recapitalization of the Central Bank of Afghanistan and related purposes. In addition, $2.7 billion has been allocated to the US Department of Defense (DOD) in the fiscal year 2022 to transport, house, and feed Afghan refugees,” the document says.
The $3.5 billion is part of the same $9 billion of Afghan Central Bank assets that were frozen in the US and were recently transferred to the Afghan People's Fund or "Afghan Fund" based in Switzerland.
SIGAR writes that the Biden administration has not yet created a new comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan, but the State Department defines the current US priorities in Afghanistan as follows: 1) the welfare and safety of U.S. citizens abroad, 2) ensuring the Taliban upholds its counterterrorism commitments, including as stated on February 29, 2020, Doha Agreement, 3) ensuring the Taliban abide by commitments to permit the departure from Afghanistan of U.S. citizens and permanent residents, Special Immigration Visa (SIV) holders, and Afghans of special interest to the United States, 4) addressing the humanitarian and economic crises in Afghanistan, 5) supporting the formation of an inclusive government, 6) encouraging the Taliban to respect human rights in Afghanistan, including those of religious and ethnic minorities, women and girls, civil society leaders, [President Ashraf] Ghani administration-affiliated individuals, and individuals who were formerly affiliated with the U.S. government, military, and nongovernmental organizations.
This report does not indicate that the Taliban received direct financial assistance, but a portion of the same $2.7 million transferred to the US Department of Defense, excluding the cost of transporting and settling refugees from Afghanistan to foreign countries, was spent on disaster prevention in Afghanistan.
However, local observers say that "humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan", as the US claims, is being spent on the Taliban, its forces, and terrorist organizations, and cases have also been recorded of the Taliban forcibly returning humanitarian aid.
Under the Doha Agreement, the Taliban were obliged to fight terrorist organizations in Afghanistan, primarily ISIS. The SIGAR report shows that the Taliban received at least $100 million from the US in 2022 for this work. But the daily intensification of ISIS activity in Afghanistan shows that not only are the Taliban not successful in the war against it, but about 20 other terrorist organizations supported by them have found refuge in Afghanistan and are getting stronger day by day. Observers of the situation in Afghanistan are of the opinion that under the guise of "humanitarian aid," the United States is actually preparing an army of terrorists to fight their rivals - Russia and China.
According to reliable data, the Taliban faked a war with ISIS to get money from the US, and the victims of this game are prisoners and former soldiers of Afghan security forces. The Taliban take them out of prisons or homes, put them somewhere with their hands tied, and then carry out an “operation” against them, after which they announce that they have destroyed ISIS members.
"Mullah swindlers": Fake Taliban “operations” against ISIS
Earlier, the media wrote that America allocates $40 million to the Taliban every week. The US Special Representative said on the anniversary of the Taliban coming to power that his country helped Afghanistan in the amount of $1.2 billion during this period, but the SIGAR report shows that this figure is many times higher, and de facto the Americans through USAID (US Agency for International Development) and the State Department actually finance their winners, those who fought against them for 20 years.
The United States and its NATO allies had an extensive military-political presence in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021 under the pretext of a “war on terrorism,” but it was the Americans who bore the main costs and made up the main military force. They were opposed by the Taliban and their allies from international terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda.
In this war, 2,402 American soldiers were killed and 20,713 were injured. According to some sources, this war cost the US $300 million a day. Other sources have calculated the cost of America's 20-year presence in Afghanistan at over $2.2 trillion.
SIGAR, or Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, was established in 2008 by that country's Congress to independently and objectively oversee the US budget for Afghanistan reconstruction. About 200 people worked in this organization and prepared reports for Congress every three months, and still do.
The very activity of USAID and the ongoing activity of SIGAR is a clear indication of the effective and non-military presence of the US in Afghanistan and turns it into a major investor of the Taliban, but at very low expenses.
