Biden’s first sanction to cripple Taliban govt kicks in

In spite of the coming-of-age story the Taliban reeled out during its first world press conference August 17, the US is not taking things lightly with the Islamic government now in place in Afghanistan.

The U.S. just froze nearly $9.5 billion in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank.

It also stopped shipments of cash to the nation as it tries to keep a Taliban-led government from accessing the money.

According to sources, any asset belonging the Afghanistan, now renamed the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, will not be accessible to the Taliban.

The group for 20 years has been on the sanction list of the US Treasury Department.

Ajmal Ahmady, acting head of Da Afghan Bank, the nation’s central bank, early Monday tweeted that he learned on Friday that shipments of dollars would stop as the U.S. tried to block any Taliban effort to gain access to the funds.

DAB has $9.5 billion in assets, a sizeable portion of which is in accounts with the New York Federal Reserve and U.S.-based financial institutions.

A lot of DAB’s assets are not currently held in Afghanistan, Al Jazeera reported.