President Joe Biden signed an executive order Friday kick-starting a legal process for dividing billions of dollars in frozen Afghan foreign reserves between victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the deepening humanitarian crisis in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
When the hard-line group seized control of Afghanistan last August, the Biden administration quickly froze access to $7 billion of the former Kabul central government’s foreign reserves being held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Since then, the Taliban have fruitlessly been demanding access to the funds.
Under national security authorities provided to the president, the new executive order will block Taliban access to the funds in New York and direct that the monies be transferred to a new account within the Federal Reserve.
