The Taliban Are Abusing Western Aid, Not Just Women

Misogyny gets headlines. The pillaging of international aid money goes unnoticed.

December 30, 2022 (Foreign Policy)—The Taliban’s shocking treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan has been capturing global headlines since the Islamists regained power and began winding the clock back to the last time they controlled the country. As outrage at the latest abuses reverberates around the world, their extreme misogyny may be masking the misuse of millions of dollars in aid that is meant to ease terrible human suffering.

Tens of millions of dollars are flown into Kabul every week by the United States and the United Nations for distribution across the country as humanitarian catastrophe grips tighter with winter closing in. Sources inside and outside the country say much of the money never reaches those who need it. Instead, they say, unknown quantities are stolen by the Taliban and diverted to their own causes, keeping supporters onside with handouts of cash and food and funding the private operations of senior leaders. Some sources in the security and charity sectors say the Taliban use the informal hawala money transfer system to benefit from a global shortage of dollars.

The allegations are fueling concerns that the Taliban, who for decades have controlled global heroin production and supply, are still engaged in organized crime. The cash deliveries are deposited in the central bank, which is controlled by the Taliban, and the privately owned Afghanistan International Bank, where U.N. agencies hold accounts. There is no accountability for where any of the money ultimately ends up.

After the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, conditions for the population of around 40 million, already among the poorest people in the world, got even worse. International sanctions on the finance sector mean people with bank accounts cannot access their savings. A shortage of cash means there’s not enough liquidity for the simplest of transactions, such as buying bread. So the United States and the United Nations, while castigating the Taliban for their brutality toward women and other groups, have provided billions of dollars in an effort to stave off mass starvation.

The U.N. launched its biggest single-country appeal in January 2022, for $4.4 billion, and has just put out its hand for $4.6 billion for 2023. A large percentage goes to cover the world body’s own overheads. U.S. bilateral aid to Afghanistan since the collapse of the republic topped $1.1 billion by September.

But the lack of accountability for where the money goes has led to concerns inside and outside the country that the group is using U.S. taxpayers’ money to fund its own worldwide criminal activity and to support sanctioned regimes such as those in Russia and Iran—and others that helped them to power—by paying for imports of fuel, food, and power with dollars. International sanctions on the banking system mean that financial transitions must go through the hawala network of money service providers, an informal system often criticized for a lack of transparency of the source and destination of funds that move around the world, often in huge quantities. The previous government introduced regulations, under international pressure, as many hawalas in Afghanistan were allegedly facilitating the movement of money earned from drugs and other illicit activities. With the Taliban in control, there is no way of knowing where the money that moves through the money exchanges comes from or where it is going.

The head of the Sarai Shahzada money market in Kabul, Mohammad Mirza Katawazai, said $12 million to $13 million a week passes through the hawalas to pay for imported commodities and fund aid programs nationwide. He said the Taliban are less corrupt than the U.S.-backed republic, under which billions of dollars were stolen by officials and their cronies, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

As challenges mount, from economic meltdown, poverty, and hunger to an increasingly bold armed opposition, the Taliban have good reason to divert aid to underpin their authority. A former Afghan intelligence and military officer, who spoke on the condition that he not be named, said food and cash distributed under U.N. supervision in some regions is taken back by local Taliban commanders for their own families and supporters. In other areas, the Taliban control the distribution lists, he and an Afghan charity source said.

“The Taliban are observing and managing the money, deciding where it must go, to what people, in which parts of the country,” the former officer said. “The people have no choice. The [Taliban] have no support, especially in the Hazara and Tajik environments in Ghor and Badghis provinces and other remote areas. The U.N. people are Afghans. They have no power to object—they face danger, intimidation, and so do their families. And no one checks later.” In other regions, such as southern provinces where the population is predominantly Sunni Pashtun, like the Taliban, aid goes directly to Taliban families and supporters, he said.

Many Afghans believe the constant cash infusions are enabling the Taliban as they entrench their power. The group, led by religious fanatics and sanctioned terrorists, has used the presence of the Islamic State in Afghanistan as the basis of cash-for-intel counterterrorism cooperation with the Biden administration. The Islamic State-Khorasan, the local branch of the Islamic State, is a major threat to Taliban autonomy, so they’re seeking to stem defections among grassroots commanders and supporters who are increasingly disillusioned with the practices, and failings, of the country’s new rulers.

The theft of aid is largely happening under the radar while abuses the Taliban are well known for garner all the attention. The Taliban began restricting women’s rights as soon as they regained power, contradicting those who said they were no longer the unreconstructed misogynists who ruled from 1996 to 2001. But the so-called “Taliban 2.0” sent women home from work and forced them to wear head-to-toe coverings, and girls were banned from high school. The announcement this month that women are also now locked out of university was no surprise, nor was the edict issued days later ordering local and international NGOs to fire all female staff.

Some NGOs, including the Norwegian Refugee Council and Care International, havesuspended operations in Afghanistan, saying that without female workers they cannot reach the people who need their help. The U.N. Security Council said it was “deeply alarmed,” and U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called for the restrictions to be reversed. The Afghan head of a local charity said the limited suspensions were an empty gesture that “would only work if the entire NGO community unanimously decides to do that, which is never going to happen here.”

“The order to sack women is purely a political decision and thus requires political pushback. We can’t react to a political decision with humanitarian ways,” he said, speaking anonymously for his own security. It’s time for the international community to “step in and take practical measures—like stop sending in $40 million every week or establish mechanisms that could help them track their money,” he said.

With no consequences, there will be no change, said an Afghan political activist who deals with the Taliban leadership. The headline-grabbing abuses are masking the theft of humanitarian funds, expanded production of heroin and other drugs, and ties with terrorists including al Qaeda. “No one is against these rules for women. This is what all Taliban want, including leaders like [Interior Minister Sirajuddin] Haqqani, whom the United States likes to think of as a moderate being swept away by the conservatives,” he said.

The United States should follow Canada’s lead, the activist said, and list the Taliban as a terrorist organization, rather than as individuals, with bans on travel, government financial transactions, and participation in international institutions. “Nothing will change until action is taken against them,” he said.