By Austin Ahlman, Ryan Grim The Intercept

The administration blamed ongoing 9/11 litigation for delays in sending desperately needed assets back to starving Afghans.

Since the Biden administration promised to release half of the $7 billion in Afghan central bank assets back to the country late last week, it has offered very little information on how it plans to do so — or when. Instead, the White House has blamed the delay on the court proceedings concerning the other half of the funds, which President Joe Biden set aside to settle a lawsuit against the Taliban by a small subset of 9/11 victims’ families. The result is a game of finger-pointing in which the lives and livelihoods of millions of Afghans are suspended, falsely contingent on the slow-moving court and a rapacious circle of lawyers.

The proceedings are currently under an injunction while more 9/11 families argue they should also have access to the funds, but legal experts say Biden’s broad emergency powers allow him to release the seized funds any time. In fact, Biden was initially forced by a court order in the Taliban lawsuit to make a decision about the assets — which were frozen when the U.S. withdrew from Kabul, despite belonging to the Afghan people and not the Taliban — by February 11.

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