Taliban took in $3.4 billion in revenue over past year, boosting cash supply in wake of Biden admin’s Afghan withdrawal
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).
The United States left 78 aircraft, 40,000 military vehicles, and over 300,000 weapons in Afghanistan in a withdrawal that saw 13 American service members lose their lives. According to the SIGAR report—which the watchdog group delivered to Congress on April 30—the Taliban transferred many of these arms directly to terrorist affiliates, while others made their way to the black market.
The Pentagon assesses that of around $18.6 billion worth of U.S. equipment provided to the Afghan Army over decades of support, $7.12 billion in weaponry remains in the Taliban’s possession. As a result, “terrorist groups continued to operate in and from Afghanistan amid ongoing U.S., UN, and regional concerns that the country remains a terrorist haven.”
More than two dozen terrorist organizations are currently active in Afghanistan, including the Islamic State-affiliated Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). At least four al Qaeda offshoots are also using the country to organize operations. “Terrorist groups,” SIGAR reported, “continued to use Afghan soil to train and plan attacks and a ‘small but steady’ flow of foreign terrorists continued to travel to Afghanistan and join one of over two dozen terror groups based there.”
The findings come just months after the Trump administration terminated virtually all U.S.-funded assistance programs in Afghanistan, citing the Taliban’s ability to steal millions annually in American taxpayer cash. The Biden-Harris administration pumped nearly $4 billion into Afghanistan after the Taliban retook control of the country, with several million in previously allocated funds continuing to flow up until March 31 of this year. During much of this time, SIGAR repeatedly exposed instances of fraud, waste, and mismanagement that plagued U.S. aid efforts after the Taliban took power.
The White House reversed course earlier this year when it dissolved the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the primary organization pumping taxpayer cash into Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
While the Trump administration initially attempted to preserve emergency food assistance programs inside the country, the State Department ultimately froze them in early April, citing “Taliban interference” in the delivery of humanitarian aid. The agency nixed several other “cash-based assistance” programs around the same time “given concerns about misuse and a lack of appropriate accountability,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said.
SIGAR discovered last year that American aid partners on the ground in Afghanistan paid the Taliban at least $10.9 million in various fees.
The State Department terminated funding for all but 2 of the 24 U.S. programs inside Afghanistan, saving American taxpayers more than $1 billion through the end of 2025, according to SIGAR. The two remaining aid initiatives support Afghan students studying online or at universities outside the country.
The billion-dollar list of now-canceled grants runs the gamut from those fostering “integrated youth activity” to others bolstering “civic activists, human rights defenders, and journalists” inside Afghanistan.
The State Department had previously allocated $80 million to Afghan farmers to improve “efficiency” and strengthen “knowledge of smart cultivation and production practices” and another $80 million for “equitable access to quality education for boys and girls,” the SIGAR report shows.
Despite the significant investment in girls’ education from the United States, the Taliban has not softened its stance on the issue, largely barring girls from attending schools and preventing women from working in most jobs.
Other funding initiatives included a $62-million program meant to “empower Afghan youth, particularly girls and young women, by equipping them with market-relevant technical and soft skills, and enhancing economic resilience and food security” and a $14.9-million grant with the purpose of creating “jobs within the carpet-weaving and jewelry industries by providing development assistance to micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises in Afghanistan.”
SIGAR, the central U.S.-Afghanistan oversight authority since 2008, will cease its operations early next year as the Trump administration brings aid to the country to an end.
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