The 7 billion dollars confiscated by the United States will be devoted to humanitarian aid and compensation for the victims of 9/11

Joe Biden cuts the pear in half. Of the seven billion dollars confiscated by the United States from Afghanistan, half will go to humanitarian aid to Afghans and the other half to the families of the victims of the attacks of September 11, 2001, announced the American President, Joe Biden, Friday, February 11. A decision that comes as the country is going through an unprecedented crisis and famine.

These seven billion dollars were held by the Central Bank of Afghanistan in the United States in the form of financial assets. But they had been frozen by American justice in August 2021, for fear that they would fall into the hands of the Taliban, back in power. “It is very important to be able to both take $3.5 billion and ensure that it is used for the benefit of the Afghan people,” while ensuring that families of victims of terrorism “can be heard” and be compensated in US federal justice, according to a senior White House official at a press conference.

The latter justified the American takeover by asserting that these resources “came from the continuous and significant assistance of the United States and other international donors over two decades”. MBut the same American official acknowledged that the legal mechanism used, which should last several months, was “legally complicated”. The path chosen by the American president, which sees the United States taking possession of the assets of another State, is likely to cause many controversiesin a context where many Afghans are forced to sell their organs or their children to feed themselves.

In total, the gross reserves of the Central Bank of Afghanistan stood at the end of April 2021 at 9.4 billion dollars, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This sum, deposited before the Taliban regained power last August, is held mainly abroad, and for the most part in the United States.