Desperate Move: Biden Administration Freezes Afghan Govt’s $9.5 BN

LAHORE: (Web Desk) — In a desperate move to Create financial restraints for the Taliban, the Biden administration has frozen about $9.5 billion of the Afghan government’s reserves in US banks.

Though undeclared, the action was first reported by The Washington Post saying US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and personnel at the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control had decided to freeze the accounts.

“Any central bank assets the Afghan government have in the United States will not be made available to the Taliban,” an administration official told the newspaper.

According to a Bloomberg report, Washington also stopped shipments of cash to Kabul as part of an effort to prevent a Taliban-led government from accessing money.

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Ajmal Ahmady, acting head of Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) — the nation’s central bank — tweeted earlier this week that he learned on Friday that shipments of dollars would stop as Washington would not allow the Taliban to access the funds.

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According to Bloomberg, the DAB has $9.5bn in assets, a sizeable portion of which is in accounts with the New York Federal Reserve and US-based financial institutions.

Afghanistan’s currency — Afghani — has faced record losses since Monday, the first working day since the Taliban takeover this weekend.

The Afghani fell as much as 4.6 percent on Tuesday to 86.0625 per dollar, the fourth day of decline, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.