Afghanistan: Taliban acting finance minister appointed to head DAB

The Taliban administration’s acting finance minister was announced to become the new head of the Afghanistan central bank, also known as DAB. The reasons for the appointment of the former minister to become the new DAB head were not revealed.

The Afghan finance ministry spokesman Ahmad Wali Haqmal told Reuters on Wednesday that former acting finance minister Mullah Hidayatullah Badri was made the new governor of DAB. Badri served as the acting finance minister when the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan in 2021 and has already taken up his new position, succeeding Haji Mohammad Idris. The reasons for Badri’s appointment were unknown.

Badri also served as the head of the economic commission of the Islamic Emirate, what the Taliban refers to as their administration. Taliban officials said Badri operated most of the insurgent group’s fundraising during their 20-year insurgency against the former Western-backed government.

The United States has monitored appointments to the Afghan central bank, as Washington has frozen billions of the bank’s reserves that are held in the US. The US later transferred half of the reserves to a trust in Switzerland overseen by US, Swiss, and Afghan trustees.

One of the proposed conditions by the US on considering giving DAB access to the funds was to replace senior Taliban members at the institution with experienced individuals. The move would be an effort to restore confidence in the central bank to prevent political interference.

Also this week, the United Kingdom has formally launched an independent investigation into the allegations that the British armed forces engaged in dozens of extrajudicial killings in Afghanistan from 2010 to 2013. The probe was first announced in December and will also look into whether the British military was able to investigate the allegation of unlawful killings of civilians.

The British government ordered the inquiry after lawyers that represent half of the families of eight Afghans who were allegedly killed by British forces during night-time raids presented a legal challenge.

“It is clearly important that anyone who has broken the law is referred to the relevant authorities for investigation,” said the probe’s leading judge Charles Haddon-Cave. “Equally, those who have done nothing wrong should rightly have the cloud of suspicion lifted from them. This is critical, both for the reputation of the armed forces and the country.”