Taliban says US will provide humanitarian aid to Afghanistan

[3 bucks new rv rate]

Taliban says US will provide humanitarian aid to Afghanistan

Relatives and residents pray during a funeral ceremony for victims of a suicide attack at the Gozar-e-Sayed Abad Mosque in Kunduz, northern

 

 

KATHY GANNON

Mon, October 11, 2021, 2:19 AM

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The U.S. has agreed to provide humanitarian aid to a desperately poor Afghanistan on the brink of an economic disaster, while refusing to give political recognition to the country's new Taliban rulers, the Taliban said Sunday.

The statement came at the end of the first direct talks between the former foes since the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops at the end of August.

The U.S. statement was less definitive, saying only that the two sides “discussed the United States’ provision of robust humanitarian assistance, directly to the Afghan people.”

 

The Taliban said the talks held in Doha, Qatar, “went well,” with Washington freeing up humanitarian aid to Afghanistan after agreeing not to link such assistance to formal recognition of the Taliban.

The United States made it clear that the talks were in no way a preamble to recognition of the Taliban, who swept into power Aug. 15 after the U.S.-allied government collapsed.

State Department spokesman Ned Price called the discussions “candid and professional,” with the U.S. side reiterating that the Taliban will be judged on their actions, not only their words.

“The U.S. delegation focused on security and terrorism concerns and safe passage for U.S. citizens, other foreign nationals and our Afghan partners, as well as on human rights, including the meaningful participation of women and girls in all aspects of Afghan society,” he said in a statement.

Taliban political spokesman Suhail Shaheen also told The Associated Press that the movement's interim foreign minister assured the U.S. during the talks that the Taliban are committed to seeing that Afghan soil is not used by extremists to launch attacks against other countries.

On Saturday, however, the Taliban ruled out cooperation with Washington on containing the increasingly active Islamic State group in Afghanistan.

IS, an enemy of the Taliban, has claimed responsibility for a number of recent attacks, including Friday's suicide bombing that killed 46 minority Shiite Muslims. Washington considers IS its greatest terrorist threat emanating from Afghanistan.

“We are able to tackle Daesh independently,” Shaheen said when asked whether the Taliban would work with the U.S. to contain the Islamic State affiliate. He used an Arabic acronym for IS.

Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who tracks militant groups, agreed the Taliban do not need Washington's help to hunt down and destroy Afghanistan's IS affiliate, known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, or ISKP.

The Taliban "fought 20 years to eject the U.S., and the last thing it needs is the return of the U.S. It also doesn’t need U.S. help,” said Roggio, who also produces the foundation's Long War Journal. “The Taliban has to conduct the difficult and time-consuming task of rooting out ISKP cells and its limited infrastructure. It has all the knowledge and tools it needs to do it.”

The IS affiliate doesn't have the advantage of safe havens in Pakistan and Iran that the Taliban had in its fight against the United States, Roggio said. However, he warned that the Taliban's longtime support for al-Qaida make them unreliable as counterterrorism partners with the United States.

The Taliban gave refuge to al-Qaida before it carried out the 9/11 attacks. That prompted the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan that drove the Taliban from power.

“It is insane for the U.S. to think the Taliban can be a reliable counterterrorism partner, given the Taliban’s enduring support for al-Qaida,” Roggio said.

During the meeting, U.S. officials were expected to press the Taliban to allow Americans and others to leave Afghanistan. In their statement, the Taliban said without elaborating that they would “facilitate principled movement of foreign nationals."

 

link  :  https://news.yahoo.com/taliban-says-us-humanitarian-aid-191912769.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

[3 bucks new rv rate]

Taliban press Biden to release frozen Afghan assets as economy shrivels

 

Dave Lawler

Fri, October 15, 2021, 6:00 AM

With the Afghan government and economy starved of cash, the Taliban are pressing their claim to the roughly $8 billion in Afghan foreign reserves that have been frozen by the U.S.

Why it matters: Afghanistan is barreling into a humanitarian crisis, and donor countries and international institutions have cut off the aid that accounted for some 75% of the previous government’s budget.

• The U.S., EU and others are providing humanitarian assistance through third parties on the ground, but experts fear the economy is shriveling up due in part to a dire cash shortage.

• “Right now, with assets frozen and with development aid paused, the economy is breaking down,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said this week. Between $7 billion and $8 billion of the roughly $9 billion in frozen Afghan assets are held in the U.S.

• Those reserves are the “No. 1 issue” on the Taliban’s agenda in talks with foreign interlocutors, according to a source familiar with those discussions.

• Taliban representatives asked the U.S. to unfreeze the funds last weekend in the first meeting between the sides since the U.S. completed its withdrawal on Aug. 31.

 

The other side: The Biden administration appears set to leave the Afghan assets in limbo for some time.

• State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Tuesday that the reserves are among the “carrots and sticks” the U.S. has to influence the Taliban, and decisions on such issues will be based on the Taliban’s “conduct.”

• A senior administration official told Axios that the funds couldn’t be released “with the snap of a finger” due to the fact that the U.S. has not recognized the Taliban government, the existing terrorism sanctions against the group and its leaders, and the legal cases in which "several groups of plaintiffs are seeking to attach the funds."

• The official wouldn't specify which litigation, but the families of 9/11 victims have brought lawsuits against Afghanistan for harboring al-Qaeda.

• “Releasing the reserves is no guarantee Taliban will actually use it effectively to solve problems,” the official added. “The Taliban was in control in the '90s and was not a responsible economic steward and they have shown zero evidence they will be responsible stewards now.”

• “The administration is in a real pickle here,” says Laurel Miller, a former top State Department official on Afghanistan and now director of the Asia program at the International Crisis Group.

• “On the one hand, there is certainly an argument, technically speaking, for not releasing the assets to a government that is not recognized,” Miller says.

• “There is also a political argument that may be the largest obstacle, that no matter what the facts are about who these assets belong to, it could be construed as giving billions of dollars to the Taliban.”

• “On the other hand, the fact that these assets are frozen is one of the factors that is doing damage to the Afghan economy, because there is a liquidity crisis. There is a lack of cash in the Afghan banking system,” Miller notes.

• State of play: The UN is urgently seeking additional funding and warning that the crisis will deepen as winter approaches. Already, only 5% of Afghan households have enough to eat.

  Between the lines: The senior U.S. official argued that the reserves are a “separate issue” from the U.S. response to the humanitarian crisis and that releasing them would “not solve the lasting economic challenges Afghanistan is facing.”

• But as Afghanistan’s cash crunch deepens, the pressure to release them will grow.

link  :  https://news.yahoo.com/taliban-press-biden-release-frozen-230016180.html

[3 bucks new rv rate]

Former defense secretary Robert Gates said Afghan withdrawal sickened him

Mike Brest

Fri, October 15, 2021, 4:13 AM

 

Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said he was sickened by how the Afghan withdrawal occurred.

Gates, who served as the chief of the Department of Defense from 2006-2011 during parts of the Afghan and Iraq wars, characterized the withdrawal as “really tough,” in an interview with 60 Minutes that has yet to air.

AIR FORCE REVEALS COMMERCIAL EVACUATION FLIGHT FROM AFGHANISTAN. WAS NEARLY HIJACKED

“For a few days there, I actually wasn’t feeling well,” he said. “And I realized it was because of what was happening in Kabul, and I was just so low about the way it had ended, if you will.”

He also speculated that “it probably did not need to have turned out that way.”

Gates, who also served as the director of central intelligence before his tenure as defense secretary, also noted the United States had “a lot of time to plan” because the previous administration agreed to a conditions-based withdrawal deal with the Taliban.

"Certainly, the military considers withdrawal the most dangerous part of an operation,” he said. “But they really had a lot of time to plan, beginning with the deal that President Trump cut — with the Taliban … So that was in February of 2020.”

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

He also said the military should’ve started evacuations immediately after President Joe Biden announced a monthslong delay from the previously agreed-upon exit date.

The 20-years long war ended chaotically in August. With only two weeks before the exit date, the Taliban overthrew the U.S.-backed Afghan government, prompting a noncombatant evacuation operation in which U.S. and NATO forces evacuated roughly 120,000 people before the end of the month.

 

link  :  https://news.yahoo.com/former-defense-secretary-robert-gates-211300658.html

[3 bucks new rv rate]

Users severely punished, but Taliban desperately need drug money: ‘Afghanistan remains an opium paradise’

October 9, 2021

 

 

Rehabilitation clinic

“It doesn’t matter if some die,” said a Taliban patrol chief. “Others are healed. When they are healed, they can be free again.”

Because the Taliban also take emaciated users in buses to a rehab facility in a former US military base. There their hair is shaved off and they are forced to kick the habit – without medicines, because there are none.

Especially propaganda for the ‘Western stage’, says Jorrit Kamminga, Afghanistan expert at the Clingendael Institute. Moreover, a contradictory message, says the researcher, because a crackdown on drug users in particular is becoming less popular in the West.

Raw material for heroin

But while the Taliban are cracking down on drug addicts in Kabul, the new rulers themselves are also dependent on narcotics. The country is the world’s largest producer of opium, the raw material for heroin. Almost all heroin on the European market is made from Afghan opium.

The Taliban earned this by, among other things, levying taxes on poppy cultivation and the production and trade in drugs. In 2019 and 2020, according to NATO, with 416 million dollars, this was even the movement’s second most important source of income, although researcher Kamminga says that it is difficult to put a reliable figure on this.

Yet the drug trade does not sit well with the Taliban. Not only drug addicts in Kabul will be tackled, but the opium trade itself will also be curbed, according to the new rulers, now that they are in control throughout Afghanistan. “When we were in power earlier, there was no drug production,” a Taliban spokesman said about the takeover in August. “We will reduce the cultivation of opium to zero again.”

Recordhoeveelheden

The Taliban refer to a ban on opium cultivation in 2000, when the movement also ruled Afghanistan. During the war in the country (2001-2021), opium production only increased again, reaching record levels in recent years.

Afghanistan expert Kamminga says to take the plans for a new opium ban ‘with a large grain of salt’. “We know that in recent years they have benefited from the opium economy in areas they controlled. And no new ban has been introduced there either.” Moreover, he said the previous ban was a deal in exchange for the pledge of an aid package and the hope of political recognition.

The question is also whether the Taliban can now afford a new opium ban: the Afghan economy is in ruins and a humanitarian disaster threatens. Three-quarters of the country’s state spending was dependent on international aid, but because the new regime in Kabul is controversial, little is now coming in.

International support

Kamminga thinks that because of the bad economic situation, exacerbated by the corona pandemic, a new ban will therefore not come quickly. Unless there is international financial support in return. For farmers, the earlier ban turned out to be a tragedy, says Kamminga. “Hundreds of thousands of people may have to be compensated for years.”

 

link  :  https://www.ruetir.com/2021/10/09/users-severely-punished-but-taliban-desperately-need-drug-money-afghanistan-remains-an-opium-paradise/

[3 bucks new rv rate]

TALIBAN NEED FREEZED FUNDS TO AVOID ECONOMIC COLLAPSE AND REGIME END

12. OCTOBER 2021

SUPPORT THE FREEDOM OF AFGHANISTAN

HELP THE AFGHAN PEOPLE DIRECTLY

Become a Patron!

HELP THE CHILDREN OF AFGHANISTAN DIRECTLY

https://afghannewswire.com/

 

The Afghan economy is lurching closer to collapse – leading to more urgent calls to end the humanitarian crisis. The UN Secretary General says there’s another way to inject money into the country’s economy. Al Jazeera’s James Bays reports from the United Nations.

 

link  :  https://afghannewswire.com/2021/10/12/taliban-need-freezed-funds-to-avoid-economic-collapse-and-regime-end/

[3 bucks new rv rate]

EXCLUSIVE Cash airlifts planned to bypass Taliban and help Afghans -sources

By Robin Emmott and John O'Donnell, Jonathan Landay

October 8, 20213:43 AM WIB

A boy sells bread at a makeshift shelter for displaced Afghan families, who are fleeing the violence in their provinces, at Shahr-e Naw park, in Kabul, Afghanistan October 4, 2021

 

BRUSSELS/FRANKFURT/WASHINGTON, Oct 7 (Reuters) - As desperate Afghans resort to selling their belongings to buy food, international officials are preparing to fly in cash for the needy while avoiding financing the Taliban government, according to people familiar with the confidential plans.

Planning for the cash airlifts is going ahead against the background of a rapidly collapsing economy where money is short, although diplomats are still debating whether Western powers can demand that the Taliban make concessions in return, according to internal policy documents seen by Reuters.

The emergency funding, aimed at averting a humanitarian crisis in the face of drought and political upheaval, could see U.S. dollar bills flown into Kabul for distribution via banks in payments of less than $200 directly to the poor - with the Taliban's blessing but without their involvement.

As well as flying in cash to stem the immediate crisis, donor countries want to set up a "humanitarian-plus" trust fund that would pay salaries and keep schools and hospitals open, two senior officials said.

Many Afghans have started selling their possessions to pay for ever scarcer food. The departure of U.S.-led forces and many international donors robbed the country of grants that financed 75% of public spending, according to the World Bank.

The West's unorthodox strategy reflects the dilemma it faces. Still eager to help Afghanistan after two decades of war, and to prevent mass migration, it is also loathe to give money to the Taliban, who seized power in August and have yet to show significant change from the harsh way they ruled the country between 1996-2001.

CASH DROPS

The United Nations has warned that 14 million Afghans face hunger. Mary-Ellen McGroarty, U.N. World Food Programme Afghanistan director, said the economy could collapse in the face of the cash crisis.

"Many parents are foregoing food so that their children can eat," she has said.

In recent days, Western diplomats and officials have stepped up efforts to establish a cash lifeline.

The United Nations World Food Programme has distributed about 10 million Afghanis ($110,000) in cash via a local bank and intends to disburse more soon, said one person with knowledge of the situation.

The cash runs are a trial for larger air deliveries of dollars from Pakistan, the person said.

A senior diplomat said two approaches are under consideration that would inject cash into the Afghan economy. Both are in the planning stages.

Under the first plan, the World Food Programme would fly in cash and distribute it directly to people to buy food, expanding on something the agency already has been doing on a smaller scale.

The second approach would see cash flown in to be held by banks on behalf of the United Nations. That would be used to pay salaries to the staff of U.N. agencies and non-governmental organizations, the diplomat said.

A third person said U.N. officials had talked with Afghan banks about opening up cash distribution channels.

 

"If the country collapses, we will all pay the consequences," said a senior European Union official. "No one wants to rush into a recognition of the Taliban, but we need to deal with them. The question is not if ... but how."

A spokesperson for the World Food Programme said it had helped almost 4 million people in September, nearly triple the August number, chiefly with food, and some cash assistance had been given out in Kabul.

The spokesperson said the cash shortage was also affecting the millers and truckers it worked with. He said that the agency was not flying cash into Afghanistan.

NINE-BILLION-DOLLAR LEVERAGE

 

Separately, the European Union, Britain and the United States have discussed setting up an international trust fund to bypass the Afghan government and help finance local services, according to two officials with knowledge of the matter.

The Taliban did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the cash airlift plans.

A U.S. Treasury spokesperson said it would allow humanitarian assistance through independent international and non-governmental organisations while "denying assets" to the Taliban and sanctioning its leaders.

The Kabul government has little to fall back on. The central bank, with assets of $9 billion frozen offshore, has burnt through much of its reserves at home.

 

Shah Mehrabi, an official who helped oversee the bank before the Taliban took over and is still in his post, recently appealed for a release of the overseas reserves.

"If reserves remain frozen, Afghan importers will not be able to pay for their shipments, banks will start to collapse, food will be become scarce," he said.

But there is also a debate about whether strings should be attached to cash releases.

In a paper written last month and seen by Reuters, French and German officials outline their aim of using money as a "lever" to pressure the Taliban.

 

"Countries could condition recognition of the political ... legitimacy of the Taliban to the commitments they would be ready to take," officials said in the two-page report.

"Economic and trade levers are among the strongest we have," the note said, raising the prospect of releasing the Afghan reserves held abroad.

In a separate diplomatic note, French and German officials outline five demands that could be made of the Taliban.

Those include allowing Afghans who want to leave the country to do so, "breaking ties with ... terrorist organisations", allowing access to humanitarian aid, respect for human rights and establishing an "inclusive government".

 

link  :  https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/exclusive-cash-airlifts-planned-bypass-taliban-help-afghans-sources-2021-10-07/

 

 

 

 

 

[3 bucks new rv rate]

Taliban Now Begging America to Send Cash to Terror Org

By

 Paul Duke

 -

October 14, 2021

 

The entire Afghanistan debacle has been just about as disheartening as it has been disastrous, and the American people have long been demanding answers as to just how and why things turned as poorly as they did.

Now, as if to add insult to injury, the Taliban terror group, (who are now in charge of the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan”), are begging America for money.

The Taliban terrorists now governing the new Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan thanked the United Nations and its donors Tuesday after they promised hundreds of millions of dollars in aid before scolding America and telling it to join the donation frenzy and show some “heart.”

AFP reports the group turned on the U.S. after saying it will “try its best to deliver this aid to the needy people in a completely transparent manner.”

Amir Khan Muttaqi, the regime’s acting foreign minister, went on adding “America is a big country, they need to have a big heart.”

The audacity of the terror groups’ request is a naked affront to the situation at hand, particularly as Americans, their allies, and their assets are still trapped in the middle eastern nation on account of the Taliban’s actions.

The United Nations this week opened an avenue for donations to the Taliban, in hopes of raising $600 million to fund the burgeoning “government” in Afghanistan.

 

link  :  https://steadfastdaily.com/taliban-now-begging-america-to-send-cash-to-terror-org/

[3 bucks new rv rate]

Taliban Cries Poor: Urges U.S. to Show Some ‘Heart’ and Send Money

 

BY SIMON KENT 14 Sep 2021

 

The Taliban terrorists now governing the new Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan thanked the United Nations and its donors Tuesday after they promised hundreds of millions of dollars in aid before scolding America and telling it to join the donation frenzy and show some “heart.”

AFP reports the group turned on the U.S. after saying it will “try its best to deliver this aid to the needy people in a completely transparent manner.”

Amir Khan Muttaqi, the regime’s acting foreign minister, went on adding “America is a big country, they need to have a big heart.”

Taliban fighters eat their lunch inside the home of the Afghan warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum in the Sherpur neighborhood of Kabul. Taliban fighters have taken over the glitzy Kabul mansion of one of their fiercest enemies — the warlord and fugitive ex-vice president Dostum.  

 

The plea for Americans to open their wallets came just 24-hours after the United Nations opened a high-level donors conference with the call for the world to urgently send $600 million to help fund the Taliban over the next three months.

As Breitbart News reported, disbursement of funds to those Afghans in need has been guaranteed in writing by the Taliban, the U.N. assured potential contributors.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is leading the globalist body’s call for the funds in what amounts to a public relations victory for the terrorist group after U.S. and NATO forces fled the 20-year war in a chaotic departure.

Since the Taliban takeover, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have halted Afghanistan’s access to funding, while the United States has also frozen cash held in its reserve for Kabul.

 

link  :  https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2021/09/14/taliban-cries-poor-urges-u-s-to-show-some-heart-and-send-money/

[3 bucks new rv rate]

Afghanistan’s Economic Freefall

Without urgent assistance, nearly the entire country could sink into poverty, the United Nations Development Program warns.

By Stefanie Glinski

OCTOBER 5, 2021, 11:19 AM

 

KABUL—Since the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan has been plunged into an economic and financial crisis that has paralyzed banks and businesses, sent poverty and inflation rates skyrocketing, and threatens to undermine the new Taliban government almost from its inception.

Foreign aid, which previously made up about three-quarters of the government budget, has all but evaporated. The Taliban regime, still without international recognition, can’t manage access to $10 billion in assets held overseas by the Afghan central bank. The afghani, the local currency, has plummeted in value and has been displaced in many parts of the country by the more stable Pakistani rupee—previously used in many parts of eastern and southern Afghanistan. The country still needs to import billions of dollars’ worth of goods, but it has even fewer options to earn money from exports than before, and it has a hard time physically getting remittances from Afghans abroad.

Under the previous Taliban regime just over two decades ago, Afghans were thrown into economic turmoil, with many living on the brink of starvation as little aid trickled in. Experts now fear a repeat. Almost every Afghan could be at risk of sinking below the poverty line next year, the United Nations Development Program warned.

“Afghanistan is on the verge of becoming a failed state, and the Taliban—still under international sanctions—is sleepwalking into a crisis that is going to get them an irreversible outcome,” said Haroun Rahimi, an economist and assistant law professor at the American University of Afghanistan.

Afghanistan’s licit economy is dominated by services and agriculture—both of which have taken a hit already. Within a month of the Taliban takeover in August, more than 150 media outlets stopped operating, the local news channel Tolo reported, dealing a death blow to what had been one of the most vibrant media landscapes in the region. Many small businesses have folded, stung by banking sector paralysis, rising inflation, and difficulty acquiring cash. Agriculture, the biggest source of employment, has taken a double whammy from rampant insecurity in the countryside and widespread droughts.

 

On a busy, traffic-jammed Kabul road in late September, Ziaullah Hamdard was one of dozens of people selling off all their household possessions. Beggars roamed between the vendors, their hands extended, pleading for money and food. The Hamdard family’s cosmetic studio went out of business as customer numbers declined with the rise of the Taliban and as life in the capital turned too expensive. So the 18-year-old, together with his parents and siblings, decided to ditch Kabul for their native Laghman province, where the cost of living would be cheaper and where they might eke out sheer survival just a little longer. 

“Everything collapsed within the last month,” Hamdard said. “We have no money. If we stayed here, we’d soon be begging, too.”

 

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said the group was “working day and night” to address the country’s economic challenges. Recently, new appointments were made to fill positions at the ministries of finance, economic affairs, and commerce and industry, but funds are running dry. What remains in the Ministry of Finance’s treasury is an estimated 10 billion to 20 billion afghanis (worth something like $110 million to $220 million at current, highly variable, exchange rates), which is used to keep minimum services running and to pay civil servants, a government source speaking on the condition of anonymity said. The source added that domestic sources of revenue—such as customs, tax receipts, and people paying for government services—had dropped significantly since the Taliban’s takeover. While $1.2 billion in humanitarian aid has been pledged to Afghanistan, the funds would barely help the country’s economy recover, unless U.N. agencies and nonprofits would contract and pay local traders to deliver services instead of bringing in their own staff.

“Complete economic failure” is not the likeliest scenario, said Hasib Hakimzay, the Ministry of Finance’s director of fiscal policy. He is working with the Taliban to pass a budget for the remainder of the year. “We need the world—and especially the Western countries—to recognize the Taliban as a government. If that’s the case, our problems could be solved. Otherwise, we’re heading towards a deep recession.”

 

But international recognition—potentially unlocking access to frozen reserves and perhaps a resumption of more international aid—seems elusive. The group has already backtracked on promises it made before taking power. The all-male, nearly all-Pashtun government is anything but inclusive. Girls over sixth grade still haven’t been able to return to school. Journalists and women’s rights protesters have been beaten and tortured as anti-Taliban protests have been largely forbidden—they can only be held with permission from the Ministry of Justice.

“They are talking the good talk, which tells me that they know what they should be striving for, but they so far haven’t been meeting the demands made by the international community,” Hamdard said. “They have been fighting for a vision of victory that now has to be modified to govern. I’m not very optimistic their leadership has this autonomy without shedding fighters who might feel betrayed.” Disaffected fighters could join the ranks of the Islamic State or other transnational groups, which could further dampen the international community’s appetite to recognize the Taliban regime.

 

In the meantime, across the country, hard times await. Fuel prices have more than doubled, from just over 30 afghanis per liter to roughly 70. Food prices are jumping, too: Oil that fetched 450 afghanis for a 5-liter jug now goes for 1,100, while the price of flour has gone up 20 percent. But with many salaries unpaid, few people can make purchases, anyway. 

In the regional hospital in southern Kandahar province, the malnutrition ward is running over capacity, with more than 70 children admitted, according to Zainullah Zermal, a doctor at the hospital. “Cases are rising because people have no money,” Zermal said. 

 

Mothers sit watching their children attached to feeding tubes or oxygen tanks. Some of the children have died. Some mothers say they came from neighboring provinces, borrowing money to pay for the trip. Nasanine, a 50-year-old woman, who like many Afghans goes by only one name, arrived last week cradling her 7-month-old grandchild Setara, who was sick and undernourished. With no funds available, more than 2,000 health facilities throughout the country had to close in recent weeks, the Red Cross reported, meaning that people have to travel farther to seek even basic care.

 

In Kabul, even those who have savings barely have access to cash. Samiqullah Ahmadi, a 27-year-old owner of a cellphone shop, said he had been waiting since 8 a.m. outside Azizi Bank to withdraw money. At 5 p.m., he was told to return the next day. “You can’t get more than 20,000 afghanis [roughly $200] a week,” he said. “There are no purchases, no industry, no money. I want to stay in Afghanistan and make it work, but it’s tough.”

In the 1990s, the international community shunned the Taliban and cemented a pariah state. This time around, some experts are hoping against a repeat, believing the international community can’t risk leaving an impoverished and isolated Afghanistan to its own devices.

“They know too well that threats to international security are brewing in such environments, and realize that the consequences of failing Afghanistan—for the world and for the region—will be severe,” Rahimi said.

 

link  :  https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/10/05/afghanistan-economy-poverty-crisis-taliban/

[jg1]

All the money and wepons left behind and your crying! 

Need to liquidate your assets. If we give them more it will just go to our currupt government officials I mean their currupt government officials.

Edited October 15, 2021 by jg1

[nannab]

AH a big fat NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

 I agree jg1  

24 minutes ago, jg1 said:

All the money and wepons left behind and your crying! 

Need to liquidate your assets. If we give them more it will just go to our currupt government officials I mean their currupt government officials.