There’s an “increased risk” that at least $293 million in aid disbursed by the State Department in Afghanistan between March and November 2022 could fall into the Taliban’s hands, a new Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) report has found.
The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) and the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), sub-agencies of the State Department, provided incomplete documentation to SIGAR and therefore could not establish they had complied with counter-terrorism vetting requirements, according to the report. Members of the Taliban have been attempting to capture U.S. funds meant to provide aid to the people of Afghanistan since the terrorist organization took over the country in August 2021.
“The risk of Taliban-founded NGOs, or other organizations that could funnel money to terrorist groups, benefiting from U.S. taxpayer funds underscores the importance of State complying with its own vetting and document retention requirements.” the report reads. “As the U.S. government continues to provide assistance to the people of Afghanistan, it is vital that State complies with its partner vetting requirements intended to prevent the department from awarding U.S. taxpayer funds to individuals and entities with ties to terrorism.”
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) officials told SIGAR that their agency had heard reports of over 1,000 new nongovernmental organizations registering with the Taliban and that many of those groups are affiliated with terrorists. The State Department requires officials to perform risk assessments prior to awarding funds to Afghan entities, leveraging an array of public and non-public information to gauge how likely it is that potential partners have ties to terrorist organizations.
The State Department told SIGAR that DRL and INL did not retain some of the documents related to these vetting processes and, therefore, could not be provided to investigators. Noncompliance with the State Department’s counterterrorism partner vetting protocols creates an “increased risk” that American tax dollars could end up in the hands of the Taliban, according to the report.
SIGAR recommended that the State Department take immediate action to make sure its sub-agencies are complying with counter-terrorism vetting requirements.
There is some evidence that taxpayer funds have fallen into the hands of the Taliban since the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan, with SIGAR uncovering in May that $1.3 million flowed to the terror organization through the State Department’s Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement in Afghanistan. The Taliban has also interfered with American humanitarian operations in the country, with individuals linked to USAID’s $102 million Afghan “Democracy, Gender and Rights Program” being detained by terrorists.
Three years after the United States left Afghanistan, the country has experienced famine, the erosion of women’s rights and proliferation of terrorist organizations like ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
“Afghanistan has not returned to a pre 9/11 state — in many ways, it is much worse now, as our disastrous withdrawal has fueled a new global enthusiasm for Islamic extremism,” former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East Simone Ledeen previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The Biden administration’s denials about the real and growing threat from Afghanistan are consistent with their reality-denying assertions that their withdrawal was a success and that no American service members have been killed on their watch (a false assertion President Joe Biden made in June). The warning lights are flashing red.”
Congress established SIGAR in 2008 to monitor government expenditures in Afghanistan during the war on terror and has since evolved to track the United States’ post-withdrawal spending in the country.
The State Department, DNL and INL did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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