Is the Biden Administration Funding a Next Wave of 9/11-Inspired Terrorists?

As the second anniversary of the disastrous American evacuation of Afghanistan approaches, a new report on America’s lavishing of aid on Taliban-controlled Afghanistan raises a new question: Is President Biden now financing would-be terrorists in the 9/11 mold?As detailed in the latest quarterly report to Congress by the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, “the U.S. Government has appropriated more than $2.35 billion” in fiscal year 2022 and 2023 funding “for Afghanistan construction programming since the Taliban takeover.”As the July 30 Sigar report that was released Tuesday notes, the United Nations office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs, charged with disbursing global funds in Afghanistan, has reported that between January 2022 and June of this year $4.45 billion was donated globally for humanitarian aid, and America is by far the largest contributor, pledging $1.35 billion for that period. Where does the money go?In addition to the Taliban, “there are over 20 emerging violent extremist groups in Afghanistan right now,” an Afghanistan war veteran, Lieutenant Colonel Scott Mann, a retired Green Beret, tells the Sun. “They come from all over the world and they are protected by the Taliban, including by giving them citizenship. It is reminiscent of the period leading up to 9/11. And we are pumping cash into it.”Since America left the country in 2021, “we’ve been fighting not only the Taliban but every one of these groups,” the National Resistance Front for Afghanistan’s head of foreign relations, Ali Nazary, tells the Sun. “All of them are jihadists, all of them are tied together. Some are local, some are global, but they all share the same ideology.”Groups with ties to Africa’s al-Shabab and Boko Haram, as well as others fighting India or other regional powers and those inspired by worldwide jihad, have inherited arms and military equipment left behind after America departed. Some of these American-made weapons have shown up as far away as the Gaza Strip.“Just because America left, that doesn’t mean the war on terror is over, and we are fighting it,” Mr. Nazary says. “It’s absurd to think that the Taliban can serve as a partner” in disbursing aid in the country. All the country’s jihadists are intertwined with the ruling Taliban, he adds, so “these funds, directly or indirectly, get to these groups.” Testifying to Congress in April, Sigar’s inspector general, John Sopko, seemed to agree. “I cannot assure this committee or the American taxpayer we are not currently funding the Taliban,” he said. “Nor can I assure you the Taliban are not diverting the money we are sending from the intended recipients.”The Sigar report is raising alarm bells in Congress. “You have these billions going right to the hands of the Taliban that are still working with Al Qaeda,” Representative Mike Waltz, a Republican of Florida, told Fox News Wednesday, vowing to “defund it in the House,” and to “stop funding terrorists.” In his April testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr. Sopko said that Sigar, which was created by Congress in 2008 to provide independent oversight of funds allocated to Afghanistan, formerly was in regular contact with the Department of State, the Pentagon, and other government agencies. Yet, “since this administration came in, it’s been radio silence,” he said. Keeping silent on Afghanistan seems to go beyond Sigar. Every administration “determines where the intelligence community puts its eyes on,” Lieutenant Colonel Mann, who maintains ties with a close-knit group of fellow Afghanistan veterans, says. America’s spies are now largely ignoring Afghanistan — even as “watching the re-emergence of violent extremist groups should be apolitical,” he says. Perhaps fearing that the Kabul airport debacle will resurface in the national conversation during Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign, though, Afghanistan is all but ignored. In a hearing conducted this week by Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican, Gold Star families of soldiers killed in the August 25, 2021, Kabul evacuation were livid. We “never had any personal correspondence” with the president, the mother of Lance Corporal Dylan Merola, who was killed at Kabul, Cheryl Rex, said. “Nor has my son been honored or his name spoken by this commander in chief, or his administration, on what I feel is because of their failures and poor planning to exit our troops from Afghanistan.”Other than sending funds to a poverty-stricken and ill-governed country, the Biden administration is ignoring the place that once was seen as central to the war on terror. Yet, “if there’s no one on the ground to monitor where the money is spent, do you think the Taliban will give it to the people who are starving and are under a dire humanitarian crisis?” Lieutenant Colonel Mann says. Without American funds, the Taliban couldn’t survive, Mr. Nazary says, adding that “giving them a life line is preposterous,” as the terror groups that flourish under them are a “tumor that will spread around the world.”

Is the Biden Administration Funding a Next Wave of 9/11-Inspired Terrorists?

Is the Biden Administration Funding a Next Wave of 9/11-Inspired Terrorists?

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