Biden called families of 3 Americans held by Taliban to tell them he hasn't reached deal to free them

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/b...s-taliban-detainees/

In a roughly 30-minute phone call Sunday afternoon, President Biden delivered difficult news to the families of three Americans held by the Taliban. He did not have a deal with the Taliban to free their loved ones from captivity, despite what U.S. officials described to CBS News as a significant offer the U.S. had extended in Doha days earlier. The U.S. considers Ryan Corbett and George Glezmann to be wrongfully detained by the Taliban, and describes Mahmood Habibi, who holds dual American and Afghan citizenship, as "unjustly held" since 2022.

Ahmad Shah Habibi, the brother of Mahmood Habibi, told CBS News that during the conversation, Mr. Biden clarified that he would not agree to the Taliban's demand that the U.S. release Muhammed Rahim al Afghani, a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, unless the Taliban, now the government of Afghanistan, also releases Mahmood. An NSC spokesman declined to respond to a CBS inquiry about that specific claim.

Mahmood Habibi disappeared in Afghanistan in 2022, and the Taliban denied abducting him. In a public notice posted by the FBI in August 2024, the agency said it "believed" that Habibi was taken by Taliban military or security forces and "has not been heard from since his disappearance." The FBI said in its notice that Habibi was working as a contractor for a Kabul-based telecom company when he disappeared.

The Taliban still say they do not have Habibi in custody.

"No, we don't have him," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told CBS News Monday.

Asked whether Mahmoud had disappeared in Afghanistan, Mujahid said, "It's not clear either, because we didn't know him before."

Ahmad Habibi told CBS News, "My family has every confidence that my brother is alive. There are things that neither we nor the U.S. government can say publicly, but Mahmood's case is different from the other two Americans."

"We know the other families are desperate to get their loved ones home and I told the president we want them home, too," Ahmad Habibi added. "But anyone speculating that my brother is dead is just feeding into Taliban claims. We are grateful that President Biden committed to not leave Mahmood behind," and he said that national security adviser Jake Sullivan had also made similar assurances.

The FBI declined to comment.

Corbett, who is fluent in Pashto, was working for local nongovernmental organizations before starting a microloan and consulting business in Kabul when he was arrested with three associates — one German and two Afghans — during a business trip to northern Afghanistan in 2022.

Glezmann is an Atlanta native who was detained while on a tourist visit in December 2022.

More at link


REP. TIM BURCHETT: Your Tax Dollars Are Going To The Taliban

https://burchett.house.gov/med...rs-are-going-taliban

This article originally featured in the Daily Caller
It is common knowledge that the Afghanistan withdrawal was a complete disaster, but lots of people do not know that the Biden administration has been sending cash to the Taliban every week since then.

When the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, our troops were ordered to leave behind $7 billion worth of military equipment which ended up in the hands of the Taliban. According to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the Taliban also likely gained access to approximately $57.6 million in funds that the United States had provided to the former Afghan government. But that was just the beginning of the financial atrocities. (RELATED: MORGAN MURPHY: Democrats: The Party of War)

“According to an August 2023 World Bank report, the UN has purchased, transported, and transferred $2.9 billion in U.S. currency to Afghanistan since August 2021,” said a SIGAR report published in January. “This included $1.8 billion provided in 2022 and $1.1 billion provided in 2023, as of August 2023.”

“The U.S. is the largest international donor to Afghanistan, having provided about $2.6 billion in funding to the UN, other international organizations (PIOs), and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operating in Afghanistan since August 2021,” said the SIGAR report.

The U.N., which handles the transportation of these payments, claims it needs to send cash because the country does not have the infrastructure to wire funds.

I recently hosted a guest on my podcast who goes by the name of “Legend” to talk about these payments. He is an Afghan American and former U.S. Army noncommissioned officer who has deployed to Afghanistan multiple times, and who traveled to Kabul during the Afghanistan withdrawal to rescue individuals left behind. He was introduced to me by Shawn Ryan, a popular podcast host and former Navy SEAL and CIA contractor.

Legend confirmed: “Yes, the money does end up feeding and supporting the Taliban.” He explained that the United Nations flies the cash from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan Central Bank which is managed by a terrorist who is on an active U.S. sanctions list. That bank then holds an “auction” where groups bid to take those dollars and convert it to the local currency. Every week the winner of that auction is someone associated with the Haqqani Network, a terror group with ties to Al-Qaeda.

These terrorists take the money and convert it to Afghani to distribute. Some of that money stays with the Haqqani Network, some goes to the terrorists running the bank, and the rest of the money is given to the local implementing parties or non-government organizations (NGOs).

However, the Taliban is the group handing out NGO licenses in Afghanistan. If a Taliban sympathizer asks for an NGO license, they get it. So, many of these groups send money directly to the Taliban or to support the families of suicide bombers.

Legend also said if the United States suspended these weekly payments, we would see signs of the Taliban and other Afghanistan-based terror groups crumbling within a year. The $40 million weekly cash shipments have stabilized the Afghani, making the Taliban’s newly printed currency the world’s best performer, beating the U.S. dollar in September 2023.

It is not like this administration doesn’t know who they’re dealing with. President Joe Biden was a senator and Vice President Kamala Harris was an attorney in the 1990s when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan with an iron fist. During that time, women were stripped of their rights and treated as prisoners, and the Taliban provided safe haven to al-Qaeda in the years leading up to the 9/11 attacks.

When the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 2021, their spokesperson said: “Nobody will be harmed in Afghanistan. Of course, there is a huge difference between us now and 20 years ago.” It was a laughable statement, and no sane person should have believed it. Terrorists don’t change.

The Taliban’s return to oppression started slow. First, they banned women from driving more than 45 miles without a male relative. Then they stopped them from going to school. Then they banned women’s faces and voices from being displayed in public, and prohibited women from looking at men they are not related to. These women are now prisoners in their own country as much as they were in the 1990s. And we are funding their oppressors.

The fact that a single penny of American tax dollars has ended up in the hands of terrorists is a disgrace. I introduced a bill that would do three things to stop it:

First, my bill states the policy of the United States is to oppose support to the Taliban. It also calls for a report on any foreign countries that have given support to the Taliban and calls for the secretary of State to develop a strategy to discourage foreign countries from providing support. Second, it calls for a report on cash assistance programs in Afghanistan and the safeguards in place to prevent the Taliban from accessing it. Third, it requires a report on the Afghan Fund and the Afghanistan central bank and what controls are in place to make sure those funds are not diverted or misused.

The House passed my bill earlier this year, but unfortunately the Senate won’t vote on it. This should be a bipartisan issue, and we need to keep pushing for it.

Many people lost everything because of the Afghanistan withdrawal. Women lost their freedom, Afghan citizens lost their lives, and 13 U.S. servicemembers were killed. One of those servicemembers was my constituent, Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss. He had recently finished a deployment in Afghanistan when he heard we were evacuating and he volunteered to go back to help. He was 23 years old when he was killed.

We need to honor their sacrifice as best as we can. That starts by halting the payments we have been sending to the Taliban. No more American money for terrorists.


The United States Has Provided More Than $1.1 Billion To Respond To Humanitarian Crisis In Afghanistan Since August 2021

https://www.usaid.gov/news-inf...sistance-afghanistan


Afghanistan Gets $122.5 Mil to Combat Gender-Based Violence under Taliban with no Follow Up

https://www.judicialwatch.org/...nistan-gets-122-mil/

Considering how we removed ourselves from the country, nobody there is going to want to work with us.
Without any assets in-country, the level of intelligence is nominal at-best, entirely reliant on others for developing an on-ground picture.