Will the Taliban Get the Funds Claimed by Their Victims?

That’s the question being put to the riders of the Second Circuit in a case that shows President Biden at his most delusional.

AP/Hussein Malla
Afghans wait to enter a bank at Kabul, February 13, 2022. AP/Hussein Malla

Federal circuit riders are being asked to decide the fate of billions awarded to 9/11 victims’ families — if President Biden doesn’t give it to the Taliban first. The conflict shaping up at the Second Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals centers on some $7 billion in Afghan central bank funds, half of which are left in the vaults of the New York Fed. Mr. Biden already handed the other half over to the Taliban in the name of the “Afghan Fund.”

Mr. Biden surrendered Afghanistan to the Taliban, so it’s no wonder that the militant Islamists see him as an easy mark and are pressing him to yield on their demands for the frozen billions. The handover of the money is “crucial for confidence-building,” a Taliban spokesman, Qahar Balkhi, said yesterday, Reuters reports. He said giving the billions to the regime at Kabul was needed “so that Afghans can establish an economy unreliant on foreign aid.” 

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