The Taliban on Tuesday announced a ban on the use of foreign currency in Afghanistan, a move sure to cause further disruption to an economy pushed to the brink of collapset.
The surprise move came hours after at least 25 people were killed and more than 50 wounded when gunmen attacked Afghanistan’s biggest military hospital after two heavy explosions at the site in central Kabul.
“The economic situation and national interests in the country require that all Afghans use Afghan currency in their every trade,” the Taliban said in a statement.
Photo: AFP
The use of US dollars is widespread at Afghanistan’s markets, while border areas use the currency of neighboring countries, such as Pakistan, for trade.
The Taliban government is pressing for the release of billions of US dollars of central bank reserves as the drought-stricken nation faces a cash crunch, mass starvation and a new migration crisis.
Afghanistan had parked billions of US dollars in assets overseas with the US Federal Reserve and other central banks in Europe, but that money has been frozen since the Taliban ousted the Western-backed government in August.
US-led forces and many international donors departed, leaving the country without grants that financed three-quarters of public spending.
The Afghan Ministry of Finance said that it had a daily tax take of about 400 million Afghanis (US$4.4 million).
Yesterday, officials said that a Taliban commander was among the fighters killed when his men responded to an Islamic State attack on Sardar Daud Khan Hospital.
Hamdullah Mokhlis, a member of the Haqqani network and an officer in the Badri Corps special forces, is the most senior figure to have been killed since the Taliban seized the capital.
“When he got the information that Sardar Daud Khan Hospital was under attack, Maulvi Hamdullah [Mokhlis], the commander of the Kabul corps, immediately rushed to the scene,” a Taliban media official said.
“We tried to stop him, but he laughed. Later we found out that he was martyred in the face-to-face fight at the hospital,” he added.
The attack — claimed by the Taliban’s hardline rivals, the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) — began with a suicide bomber detonating his explosives near the hospital’s entrance.
The Taliban deployed special forces to the roof of the building in a helicopter.
In a statement released on its Telegram channels, IS-K said: “Five Islamic State group fighters carried out simultaneous coordinated attacks.”
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid played down the death toll, saying that the attack was put down within 15 minutes thanks to the rapid intervention.
Additional reporting by AFP
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS