KABUL, 12 February 2022, (TON): The White House said “the US government is seeking to free up half of $7 billion in frozen Afghan central bank assets on its soil to help the Afghan people, pending a judicial decision, while holding the rest to satisfy lawsuits against the Taliban from victims of terrorism.”

President Joe Biden signed an executive order declaring a national emergency to deal with the threat of a deepening economic collapse in Afghanistan, setting the wheels in motion for a complex resolution of competing interests in the Afghan assets.

The move comes hours before the US Justice Department is due to present a plan to a federal judge on what to do with the frozen funds amid urgent calls from US lawmakers and the UN for them to be used to address the dire economic crisis that has worsened since the Taliban's takeover in August.

Senior administration officials said they would work to ensure access to $3.5bn of the assets which stem mainly from aid provided to Afghanistan over the past two decades to benefit the Afghan people.

They said “Washington would set up a third-party trust in coming months to administer the funds but details were still being worked out on how that entity would be structured and how the funds could be used.”