USAID to Investigate Report of Aid Money Flowing to Taliban

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has opened an investigation into allegations that millions of dollars in funds for road and bridge construction in Afghanistan have ended up in the hands of the Taliban through a protection racket for contractors. Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, vowed to hold hearings on the issue in the fall.

A GlobalPost news report revealed a web of financial connections between major international contractors and the Taliban, in which the insurgents agree to lay off bombing and other violence in return for up to 20 percent of the proceeds from the contract. The Taliban receives kickbacks from almost every major contract in Afghanistan, the report said. When the money is not paid out, bridges are blown up, engineers are kidnapped and projects tend to stall. If the numbers are correct, the Taliban makes as much off of the American government as it does from its chief source of income: Afghanistan's highly lucrative drug trade.