Washington: US President Joe Biden’s administration froze about USD 9.5 billion in Afghan reserves to keep cash away from the Taliban after they took over Afghanistan.
Dawn was quoted by The Washington Post as saying that US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and personnel at the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control had decided to freeze the accounts.
“No central bank assets of the Afghan government in the United States will be made available to the Taliban,” an administration official told the newspaper in a statement.
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The report said that the US State Department was consulted before actions similar to the White House, with the report adding that the Biden administration was also considering other actions to pressure the Taliban.
The report said the Biden administration did not need the new authority to freeze stockpiles because the Taliban were already under sanctions from an executive order approved after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Ajmal Ahmadi, the acting head of the country’s central bank Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB), said in a tweet that he learned on Friday that shipments of dollars would stop because Washington would not allow the Taliban to access the funds.
“On Friday morning, I received a call informing me that there would be no further USD shipments (we were expecting one on Sunday, the day Kabul fell). On Saturday, banks placed huge USD bids because Customer withdrawals accelerated,” he posted. Twitter.
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