US senator calls for accountability

KABUL (Ariana News): US Republican senator Joni Ernst in a letter to President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called for accountability over erroneously sending $293 million to the Islamic Emirate-controlled Afghanistan.

State Department bureaus failed to properly vet the recipients of $293 million provided for aid to Afghanistan in 2022, raising concerns that the Islamic Emirate may have been a beneficiary, according to a Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) report from July.

Ernst told Biden and Blinken in the Friday letter that the mistake was “unacceptable” and demanded they “take immediate action to rectify these issues.”

“After leaving billions in cutting-edge military equipment behind during the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have given the Taliban $293 million in cold hard cash,” Ernst told Daily Caller News Foundation “The American people deserve better than the complete amateur hour occurring at the White House and State Department. I’m demanding accountability.”

Ernst said in the letter that the Biden administration should be sanctioning rather than “subsidizing” the Islamic Emirate.

Earlier, US senator Mike Braun, had called on Blinken to suspend American aid to Afghanistan.

The Islamic Emirate, however, has said that cash aid from countries, including the United States, is spent through international organizations and their partners and the Emirate is not involved in it.