Taliban took in $3.4 billion in revenue over past year, boosting cash supply in wake of Biden admin’s Afghan withdrawal
Taliban parades U.S. military vehicles August 14, 2024 (@pagahindu/X)
The Taliban took in $3.4 billion in revenue over the last year, boosting its cash supply by 14 percent amid the return of Afghanistan as a central safe haven for terrorist organizations across the Middle East, according to a U.S. government watchdog group.
The repercussions of the Biden administration’s disastrous 2021 military withdrawal from Afghanistan continue to reverberate across the war-torn country, with multiple al Qaeda affiliates accessing American-supplied “weapons seized from the former Afghan National Army,” according to a new oversight report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).
US-China dispute over Afghanistan resolutions intensifies at UNSC – News.Az Source Link Excerpt:
The US-China dispute over Afghanistan resolutions has intensified at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).
The disagreement, which has been simmering since late 2024, has intensified in recent weeks following the return of the Trump administration, News.Az reports citing foreign media.
The dispute could shape not only the U.N.’s engagement with the Taliban-led government in Kabul but also Beijing’s growing influence in the Security Council.
“While the Trump administration has made headlines by pulling out of U.N. mechanisms like the Paris climate pact and the World Health Organization, this argument in the council could be a harbinger of more Sino-American tensions over multilateral security,” the report stated.
At the center of the dispute is which country should serve as the Security Council’s “penholder” on Afghanistan. In U.N. terminology, the penholder is responsible for drafting resolutions, initiating negotiations, and shaping key mandates related to the country in question.
