Months ago, the Taliban drove American forces from Afghanistan. The Biden administration fled the nation abandoning billions of dollars worth of military hardware to the enemy and deserting American citizens and loyal Afghans trapped in Taliban territory. The Taliban are now hard at work transforming Afghanistan into a 6th-century nightmare and offering sanctuary to the world’s most dangerous terrorist groups.
And Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill want to respond to all this by handing the Taliban $9.4 billion.
Monday a group of mostly Democratic lawmakers wrote a letter to Joe Biden, pressing him to ease sanctions and unblock the Afghan central bank’s foreign reserves, which Washington withheld immediately after the Taliban seized control of the country from the U.S.-backed government in mid-August.
“We are also deeply concerned that sanctions against Taliban officials now in charge of governmental functions are creating a chilling effect for financial institutions and aid organizations serving Afghanistan,” the letter read in part.
“The U.S. confiscation of $9.4 billion in Afghanistan’s currency reserves held in the United States is contributing to soaring inflation and the shuttering of commercial banks and vital private businesses, plunging the country…deeper into economic and humanitarian crisis,” the lawmakers added.
We are, you understand, now somehow responsible for what happens under Taliban rule in Afghanistan. We are also, apparently to believe that any money handed to international terrorists will be used for humanitarian purposes and not to engineer acts of mass murder around the globe.
The leader of the Taliban is a fellow named Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada. Officially he is in charge of what is now called the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. When the Taliban ran Afghanistan in the 1990’s Akhundzada was head of the Sharia Courts. In that capacity, he enforced a barbaric interpretation of Sharia law which involved public stonings, amputations, and the banning of television, music, movies, make-up, and education for girls over the age of 10.
Other key players in the new Islamic Emirate include:
– Taliban Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is on the FBI’s most-wanted list as an international terrorist. He is the leader of the Haqqani terrorist network which carried out innumerable attacks on American forces during the Afghan war. The Haqqanis have been closely allied with Al Qaeda for decades.
– Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Ghani Baradar was one of the key figures in the insurgency against American forces. He was captured and held for eight years before he was released.
– Abdus Salam Hanafi the Second Deputy Prime Minister was a military commander in the Taliban during the war against the United States. He has been a major figure in the Taliban’s narcotics business for years. These holy warriors are the world’s biggest suppliers of heroin.
– Najibullah Haqqani the Telecom Minister is another member of the Haqqani terrorist organization. He organized numerous terrorist attacks against coalition and civilian targets during the fighting.
– Khalil-ur-Rehman Haqqani the Rehabilitation Minister is yet another member of the Haqqani terrorist organization. He runs a network of front companies in the Middle East which raise money to support the Haqqani network and its terrorist activities.
– Abdul Hakim Shari’e the Minister of Justice enforced the Taliban’s barbaric version of Sharia law in Taliban-controlled territory during the fighting. He ran his own seminary in Quetta where he indoctrinated Taliban cadre in their medieval ideology.
– Mullah Mohammad Fazl the Deputy minister for Defense was held at Guantanamo for years. He is tied directly to al-Qaeda and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and has been accused of numerous war crimes.
– Tajmir Jawad the First Deputy Chief of Intelligence is yet another key leader of the Haqqani network. During the war, he masterminded a wave of terrorist suicide attacks that rocked Kabul.
These are dedicated jihadists who have spent their lives working to spread their radical vision of Islam and to replace modern, civilized society with a vicious 6th-century vision of the world. Inside Afghanistan, they are rapidly rolling back all of the reforms put in place during the American occupation.
Most women have lost their jobs. Most girls cannot attend school. Demonstrations for women’s rights have been met with violence.
Opponents of the regime are being arrested. Many have been summarily executed. Close to half the press outlets in Afghanistan have been closed.
Meanwhile, the Taliban’s ties to international terrorist groups like Al Qaida remain as strong as ever. U.S. CENTCOM commander Frank McKenzie said recently that Al-Qaida had grown in strength in Afghanistan since the Taliban took over.
“Al-Qaida is striving to strengthen and widen their presence in Afghanistan. The terrorists are regularly entering Afghanistan through its borders,” said McKenzie.
Simultaneously, the Taliban in Afghanistan has issued an open invitation to mujaheddin in neighboring Pakistan to relocate to Afghanistan and join the Islamic Emirate. New training camps have been set up just for this purpose.
“It’s easier now to get training in Afghanistan because all kinds of weapons are available there,” said one Taliban member to the Washington Post. He said many of the Taliban’s top trainers have also relocated to Afghanistan from Pakistan, where it’s now safer for them to operate.
Al-Qaida, for its part, has made no secret of its joy at seeing the Taliban victorious in Afghanistan. A congratulatory message from As-Sahab, al Qaeda’s media arm, was issued in Arabic and English just hours after the last American soldier withdrew from Afghanistan.
“We praise the Almighty, the Omnipotent, who humiliated and defeated America, the head of disbelief,” the statement read, adding, “We praise Him for breaking America’s back, tarnishing its global reputation and expelling it, disgraced and humiliated, from the Islamic land of Afghanistan.”
“On this historic occasion, we would like to offer our congratulations to the leadership of the Islamic Emirate, specifically Haibatullah Akhundzada,” the statement read. “May Allah accept your martyrs – the men, women and children who offered sacrifices in this path!” the statement said.
OpIndia.com
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, known as AQAP, also released a video boasting about the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan and vowing another attack on the scale of 9/11 but even “more painful.” The video, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI, is titled “A Message to the American People: You Have Yet to Understand the Lesson.” It features Ibrahim Al-Qousi, a former prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
In the video, Al-Qousi warns Americans: “Your security is still at risk as long as you do not comprehend the lesson and as long as you do not act to remove the reasons for which the September 11 events took place.”
“O Americans, let it be known to you that the mujahideen today are not limited to borders and that they can move from any part of the world to execute what they wish to deter your oppression. Every Muslim on the face of earth is in fact an enterprising mujahid,” Al-Qousi said.
He vowed that the upcoming jihad attack “will not be a carbon copy of the 9/11 attacks” but they could be even “more painful.” |
The relationship between the Taliban and Al Qaida and other jihadist groups is as strong now as it was on 9/11. The only thing that has changed is that the Taliban are now powerful and more entrenched than ever. The goal of all of these groups remains to spread terror and jihad around the world and strike at those Western nations, like the United States, that they see as their prime adversaries.
Every penny the Taliban acquires will go to further its own evil purposes.
Murderers and drug dealers don’t care about the suffering of the common people or the betterment of their nation. The Taliban and their allies want only one thing. Our destruction.
And a whole host of Democratic lawmakers want to hand these madmen the means they need to destroy us.
