Afghans fume over US' $3.5b assets grab

Protesters decry Biden move to keep part of frozen funds for 9/11 families

KABUL－A move by US President Joe Biden to divert $3.5 billion in frozen Afghan assets to the families of 9/11 victims has sparked outrage in Afghanistan, with protesters in the capital Kabul on Saturday accusing a "cruel" Washington of stealing the money from Afghans.

The demonstrators who gathered outside Kabul's grand Eid Gah mosque demanded that the US compensate the families of the Afghans killed during 20 years of war in Afghanistan.

Biden's order, signed on Friday, allocates another $3.5 billion in Afghan assets for humanitarian aid to a trust fund to be managed by the United Nations to provide aid to Afghans. Some $7 billion－the bulk of Afghanistan's foreign assets－are held in the US banking system.

Biden's order for the division of the frozen funds came despite calls for the money to be used to address a deepening economic crisis in Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power last year.

The $3.5 billion in assets to be set aside for the 9/11 families is subject to litigation targeting the Taliban, including by relatives of those who died in the attacks, the officials said.

Afghanistan's former president Hamid Karzai on Sunday urged the US to return his country's assets.

"Holding Afghanistan's money on any name is unfair and unjust. That money belongs to the people of Afghanistan… I am calling on President Joe Biden to return the money to the people of Afghanistan," Karzai told a news conference.

Afghanistan's central bank on Sunday called on Biden to reverse his order and release the funds to it.

In a statement a day earlier, the bank said the assets belonged to the people of Afghanistan and not a government, party or group.

"DAB (Da Afghanistan Bank) considers the latest decision of USA on blocking FX (foreign exchange) reserves and allocating them to irrelevant purposes, injustice to the people of Afghanistan," the central bank said in the statement on Saturday.

" (DAB) will never accept if the FX reserves of Afghanistan is paid under the name of compensation or humanitarian assistance to others and wants the reversal of the decision and release of all FX reserves of Afghanistan."

White House officials, however, said there is no simple way to make all the frozen assets available quickly to the Afghan people.

Sept 11 victims and their families have legal claims against the Taliban and the $7 billion in US banks. Courts would have to sign off before the release of humanitarian assistance money and decide whether to tap the frozen funds for paying out those claims.

In all, Afghanistan has about $9 billion in assets overseas, according to The Associated Press. Apart from the $7 billion in the US, the rest is mostly held in Germany, the United Arab Emirates and Switzerland.

"What about our Afghan people who gave many sacrifices and thousands of losses of lives?" asked the organizer of Saturday's demonstration, Abdul Rahman, a civil society activist.

Rahman said he planned to organize more demonstrations across the capital to protest against Biden's order. "This money belongs to the people of Afghanistan, not to the US. This is the right of Afghans."

Placards in English accused the US of being cruel and of stealing the money from Afghans.

Mohammad Naeem, the spokesman for the Taliban's political office in Qatar, on Friday criticized the decision to split the Afghan assets held in the US.

"Stealing the blocked funds of Afghan nation by the US and its seizure is indicative of the lowest level of human and moral decay of a country and a nation," Naeem wrote on Twitter.

Biden's order generated a social media storm, with Twitter saying#USA_stole_money_from_afghan trending among Afghans users of the site.

Obaidullah Baheer, a lecturer at the American University in Afghanistan and a social activist, tweeted: "Let's remind the world that#AfghansDidntCommit911 and that#BidenStealingAfgMoney!"

Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the US-based Wilson Center, called Biden's order to divert $3.5 billion from Afghanistan heartless.

"It's great that $3.5B in new humanitarian aid for Afghanistan has been freed up. But to take another $3.5B that belongs to the Afghan people, and divert it elsewhere－that is misguided and quite frankly heartless," he tweeted.

Kugelman also said the opposition to Biden's order crossed Afghanistan's wide political divide.

"I can't remember the last time so many people of such vastly different worldviews were so united over a US policy decision on Afghanistan."

AGENCIES-XINHUA