When the Taliban took over the government of Afghanistan in August 2021, the group may have seized more than $50 million in funds provided by the U.S., according to a recent report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).
The Department of Defense provided $45.6 million, the State Department gave $2 million, and the U.S. Agency for International Development provided $10 million in 2021 before the Taliban came to power and the U.S. ceased providing aid, per SIGAR’s report, which was released last week.“Once the money was transferred, U.S. agencies lost visibility over those funds and relied on the Afghan government to disburse funds for their intended purposes,” SIGAR wrote in the report.
DOD reported to Congress last March that roughly $7.1 billion of transferred defense articles and equipment remained in Afghanistan at the time the Taliban overthrew the Ghani government just weeks ahead of the U.S. military’s impending withdrawal, though SIGAR expressed doubt in the accuracy of that figure citing previous occurrences of DOD being unable to adequately track its equipment.
The State Department did not identify any equipment it transferred to Afghanistan that was there when the Taliban rose to power, though, throughout SIGAR’s evaluation, the department “provided erroneous information and did not provide information from all bureaus that left behind equipment and facilities to which the Taliban may now have access.”
“The State Department and USAID refused to answer nearly all of SIGAR’s quarterly data requests regarding agency-supported programs in Afghanistan this quarter,” the report said. “State and USAID claimed without basis that U.S. programming in Afghanistan is unrelated to reconstruction activities.”
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