WNAM MONITORING: Kabul on Wednesday “totally rejected” US President-elect Donald Trump’s claim that outgoing President Joe Biden’s administration is paying billions of dollars to the Taliban in Afghanistan, claiming Washington did not pay a single penny and instead confiscated Afghanistan’s money.
Hamdullah Fitrat, the Afghan Taliban’s deputy spokesperson, reacted strongly to Trump’s statement, saying the US is spending money to “serve its own interests.”
“The United States’ claims regarding the provision of billions and millions of dollars in aid to the Islamic Emirate are entirely incorrect, and we categorically reject these assertions,” Fitrat said in a statement on X.
Earlier on Tuesday, Trump slammed the Biden administration, alleging that billions of dollars are being funneled to “the Taliban Afghanistan.”
“It’s not even believable. Billions of dollars, not millions—billions,” Trump said, adding, “We pay billions of dollars to essentially the Taliban in Afghanistan. And that’s given by Biden.”
In his remarks, Trump claimed that President Biden’s decisions had caused severe economic harm to the US, citing losses of up to $60 trillion.
“In reality, the United States has not provided a single dollar to the Islamic Emirate; instead, it has confiscated and frozen billions of dollars that rightfully belong to the people of Afghanistan,” he said.
Fitrat was referring to the approximately $7 billion in Afghan assets frozen by the US since the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan in August 2021.
Afghanistan has approximately $9 billion in foreign assets, with $7 billion in the US and the remainder concentrated in Germany, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Switzerland.
The Taliban’s deputy spokesperson said Kabul never sought assistance from Washington after regaining power in 2021.
“The money mentioned by the United States is largely linked to its own costs, much of which was incurred in the withdrawal and evacuation of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, as well as the relocation and resettlement of Afghans who fled the country with them,” he explained.
He added that they may have used some money under the guise of “humanitarian aid” from international organizations.
“A thorough analysis shows that the U.S. directed all of this money under the guise of supporting Afghanistan, primarily to serve its own interests, and is now exploiting it as a means of propaganda against the Islamic Emirate,” he said.
