Afghan Central Bank’s $10 Billion in Reserves Remain Off Limits to Taliban

The U.S. has successfully prevented the Taliban terror group from accessing roughly $10 billion in reserves in Afghanistan’s central bank, the New York Post reported Tuesday.

While assessing Afghanistan’s rapidly deteriorating economy following the Taliban’s takeover of the country last month, the Post cited a September 8 article by Bloomberg News detailing how the U.S. recently “halted $9.4 billion in reserves to the country’s central bank.”

The Taliban terror group seized control of Afghanistan after deposing Kabul’s U.S.-backed government on August 15. The jihadist group’s toppling of Kabul prompted the U.S. government to block the Taliban’s access to “virtually all of the Afghanistan central bank’s $9 billion in reserves, most of which are held in the U.S.,” Deutsche Welle (DW) reported August 24.

This action, coupled with a similar fund blockage ordered by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), caused an acute shortage of U.S. dollars in Afghanistan starting in mid-August.

“With no new shipment of dollars arriving to shore it up, the local currency, afghani, has crashed to record lows, sending prices soaring. Prices of staples like flour, oil and rice have risen by as much as 10 percent-20 percent in a few days,” DW noted on August 24. – READ MORE