The fight over Afghan bank funds

 Washington Examiner:

Biden's move to compensate Taliban victims leaves 9/11 families seething

...

 The controversy centers on Afghan central bank reserves held in the United States, a $7 billion fund stockpiled in support of the Afghan financial system's integration into global markets. The Taliban's rapid reconquest of the country left the central bank in a precarious place — independent of a government that no longer exists but vulnerable to the victorious terrorists. President Joe Biden's response to that new dynamic has dismayed Afghan citizens living through the economic crisis wrought by the collapse of Afghanistan's democracy and empowered a small group of 9/11 families represented by one of his former advisers. This led Eagleson to suspect that a “dirty inside deal with the administration” lies at the heart of an acrimonious legal dispute between many victims of Taliban terrorism.

...

Eagleson is one of thousands of Americans involved in various lawsuits seeking accountability and compensation for the attack on the World Trade Center, which killed Eagleson's father, Bruce. Those efforts focused chiefly on states such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, but a small group of 9/11 families known as the Havlish plaintiffs secured a default judgment against the Taliban in 2011. Eagleson is a member of a group known as the Ashton plaintiffs, who are trying to stake their own claim to the Afghan central bank reserves.

The various victims of Taliban-sponsored terrorism soon received another shock when on Aug. 27, the day after the suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members deployed for the evacuation through Kabul airport, the Havlish plaintiffs obtained a writ of execution from a federal judge. This arcane-sounding legal maneuver set the stage for them to seize the Afghan central bank reserves as payment for the judgment against the Taliban that they had won in 2011 — a startling proposal for many observers of the Afghan economy, as well as some other Taliban victims.

"That money should not go to 9/11 families," said 9/11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows member Phyllis Rodriguez, whose son Greg worked in the north tower. "This is a total misunderstanding of what these funds are. ... This money belongs to the Afghan people. Without this money, there's no liquidity in Afghanistan. So there's a real economic and humanitarian crisis going on. Restoring this money to the bank would help a lot."

...

It is hard to see how the Afghan people can get a distribution of this money while the Taliban is in power.  Biden's decision to split the baby is clearly not satisfactory to either group.

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