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FOLLOW THE MONEY: Tracking Another $30 Million in U.S. Counterterrorism Funding to the Taliban As your Senators continue funding the Taliban, let's talk about a recent payment. First, in the interest of full disclosure, there are several different buckets of funding that ultimately benefit the Taliban. As most of you know, I have focused extensively on the counterterrorism (CT) funding. Why? Because that is where the lack of transparency becomes particularly important. CT funds are dark money. These payments are not publicly reported, meaning someone in Congress can look you in the eye, hold a press conference, and tell you they stopped the money going to the Taliban, knowing full well that this particular funding will never appear in the public reporting. What they seem to forget, however, is that there are two sides to every transaction. If the U.S. government refuses to disclose how much money it is delivering, you can simply work to document the transaction from the Taliban's side. Several years ago, they apparently thought we were too dumb to figure that out. Then, as more people began tracking the flights carrying payments from Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, to Kabul, Afghanistan, the deliveries were moved to Doha, Qatar. But late last month, we identified something interesting involving the counterterrorism funding. On Sunday, October 25, 2026, the U.S. delivered what appeared to be approximately $30 million to the Taliban. This time, however, the delivery did not take place in Doha. It took place in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. It appears that at least the CIA and State Department played a role in this particular payment, although the Department of War is also involved in this counterterrorism funding. Was this an attempt to conceal the delivery from those of us tracking these transactions? I cannot say for certain. But if that was the objective, IT FAILED. And to add insult to injury, there is another important question: Who received the money? The payment was handed over to Mullah Abdul Haq Wasiq, the head of the Taliban's General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI). Wasiq is a former Guantanamo Bay detainee and one of the five Taliban prisoners released by the U.S. in 2014 in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl, whom I, and many others, consider a traitor. Let that sink in. These fools are paying off terrorists while both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP) have grown to their strongest levels in Afghanistan ever in the last handful of years. The American people deserve a full accounting of every dollar delivered to the Taliban, regardless of which funding authority, government agency, or financial mechanism is used to move it. Congress should be demanding those answers, not hiding behind reporting requirements that allow certain payments to remain out of public view. And for every elected official who thinks they can keep their hands clean of this, understand that a percentage of this funding has been diverted to support al-Qaeda’s planned attacks on the U.S. homeland. There are plenty of us willing to testify about the delivery of these funds, including the monthly payments made to the sons of Osama bin Laden. You are done claiming ignorance about funding the next 9/11.