Momentum builds in Congress to ban taxpayer funding of Taliban with bill passed in Senate committee

Momentum is building in Congress to formally ban U.S. taxpayer dollars from funding the Taliban, after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday followed the House’s lead in passing the “No Taxpayer Dollars for Terrorists” bill.The bill – which “requires the Department of State to develop and implement a strategy to discourage foreign countries and nongovernmental organizations from providing financial or material support to the Taliban” – passed in the Senate committee on a 12-10 party-line vote, with all Republicans voting for the bill and all Democrats voting against it.
The Taliban conducted a lightning-fast takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 and swept into the Afghan capital of Kabul in mid-August of that year. The chaotic and deadly non-combatant evacuation operation by the U.S. was conducted through Hamid Karzai International Airport while the U.S. military relied upon a hostile Taliban – including the Haqqani Network – to provide security outside the airport.
Watchdog reports have shown the U.S. government continued to send billions to Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover, with the Taliban skimming millions in taxes.
A driving force for the anti-terrorism bill inside the Senate was Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Montana, while the leading voice behind the House’s successful passage of the bill last year was Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., who had repeatedly urged the Senate to follow the House’s lead.
Idaho GOP Sen. Jim Risch, chairman of the Senate committee, said before voting, “The most commonsense bill we have before us today is the No Tax Dollars for Terrorists Act,” according to prepared remarks provided to Just the News.
“This bill will help to prevent even one American dollar from going to terrorist organizations like the Taliban. Thank you to Senator Sheehy for his work on this important piece of legislation,” Risch also said. “American military personnel spent years fighting the Taliban. Over 2,000 Americans were killed in Afghanistan, and more than 20,000 were wounded. It is a slap in the face to these veterans and their families that any of our taxpayer dollars would flow to this organization.”
Risch said in a Senate floor speech earlier this month that “when you have a terrorist organization that is in charge of the country, it is impossible to keep the money, the food, or anything else that is sent in there out of the hands of the country.”
The Taliban is designated by the U.S. as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT), while the Haqqani Network – a key leading faction within the Taliban that makes up a significant part of the Taliban ruling government’s leadership – is designated as both an SDGT and as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO). The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TPP) – the Pakistani Taliban – is closely allied with the Taliban and is also designated as both an SDGT and FTO.
A look inside the anti-Taliban bill which now heads to the full Senate
Burchett’s bill proposal – “To Require a Strategy to Oppose Financial or Material Support by Foreign Countries to the Taliban” – originally passed the House in 2024. The “No Tax Dollars for Terrorists Act” he sponsored then passed the House again in June 2025.
The Senate committee passed a very similar version of the bill Thursday, but with amendments from Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., also passing.
The bill declares that “it is the policy of the United States “to oppose the provision of foreign assistance by foreign countries and nongovernmental organizations to the Taliban, particularly those countries and organizations that receive United States-provided foreign assistance” and “to review United States-provided foreign assistance to such foreign countries and nongovernmental organizations that have provided foreign assistance to the Taliban.”
The legislation also says that, within 180 days of the enactment of the bill as law, Secretary of State Marco Rubio “shall develop and implement a strategy to discourage foreign countries and nongovernmental organizations from providing foreign assistance to the Taliban.” 
The bill also says that, within 90 days of it being signed into law, the secretary of state “shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report on United States Government-funded direct cash assistance programs in Afghanistan during the period beginning on August 1, 2021, and ending on the date that is 30 days after the date of enactment of this Act.”
One of Paul’s amendments included in the bill also states that Rubio “shall immediately suspend all foreign assistance being sent to any country or nongovernmental organization that has provided assistance to the Taliban, as determined by the Secretary.” Another amendment by Paul says that any and all U.S. reconstruction funds for Afghanistan which have not yet been dispersed are “hereby rescinded.”
Another amendment by Paul said that its purpose was “to narrow the scope of the strategy to discourage foreign assistance to the Taliban by removing the directive to make efforts to relocate at-risk Afghans and Afghan allies” – with the amendment pulling out a section of the House bill which had called for the resettlement of Afghan allies inside the United States.
Just the News previously reported that the Afghan national who had been charged with shooting two members of the West Virginia National Guard in November was reportedly a member of the elite Afghan “Zero Unit” forces backed by the CIA – with the U.S. spy agency apparently having struck a 2021 deal with these Afghan commandos to bring thousands of the fighters and their families to the United States.
And an amendment by Shaheen declared that “it is the sense of Congress that the United States should not normalize diplomatic relations with the Taliban unless, at a minimum, the Taliban” met certain requirements.
According to the amendment, the Taliban cannot be normalized by the U.S. unless and until it “coordinates with the United States to expel al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups located in Afghanistan” and “ceases the taking of United States citizens as hostages.”
The Taliban must also end “the wrongful detention or persecution of Afghans who” worked with the U.S., served in the Afghan security forces, and advocated for human rights in Afghanistan, according to the amendment.
The amendment also said the U.S. should not normalize the Taliban until it “repeals all edicts and policies prohibiting, and takes demonstrated consistent action to support, the education, employment, free movement, and free expression of women and girls in Afghanistan” and until it repeals its laws repressing “the rights of ethnic, religious, and other minority groups within Afghanistan.”
Taliban skimmed large sums of money from U.S. taxpayers
Burchett has repeatedly contended that the U.S. has been providing $40 million to the Taliban each week as he has sought to ban the flow of taxpayer money to Afghanistan, quipping that the Taliban “will hate us for free.”
The Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) issued its “final forensic audit report” in late 2025 more than four years after the U.S. withdrawal and evacuation from the country.
The report also made clear that the U.S. had continued sending billions of dollars to Afghanistan after August 2021, even though the country was now controlled by the Taliban.
“Despite Afghanistan falling to the Taliban in 2021, the United States continued to be the nation’s largest donor, having disbursed more than $3.83 billion in humanitarian and development assistance there since,” the report said. The money continued to flow even through the first quarter of 2025, with disbursements of $120 million at the start of last year. 
The report also states that during the Biden administration the United Nations also continued sending “shipments of U.S. currency to Afghanistan” which had “stabilized the Afghan economy” but also “benefited the Taliban.”
“SIGAR reported on U.S. funds used to pay taxes to the Taliban-controlled government of Afghanistan,” the 2025 report concluded. “SIGAR found that since the fall of the Afghan government in August 2021, at least $10.9 million in U.S. funds were used to pay taxes to the Taliban-controlled government on the $2.8 billion in humanitarian and development assistance delivered to help the people of Afghanistan. While the United States government made exceptions for such types of payments, U.S. agencies inconsistently required its implementing partners to report on taxes paid to the Taliban.”
Then-SIGAR Inspector General John Sopko told Congress in April 2023 that “as I sit here today, I cannot assure this committee or the American taxpayer we are not currently funding the Taliban, nor can I assure you that the Taliban are not diverting the money we are sending from the intended recipients, which are the poor Afghan people.”
“It is no longer a question of whether the Taliban are diverting assistance from our programs to help the Afghan people, but rather how much they are diverting,” Sopko then said in the summer of 2023.
SIGAR released a May 2024 report that found that since August 2021, 38 of the 65 “implementing partners” of the State Department and USAID who responded to a questionnaire “reported paying taxes, fees, duties, or utilities to the Taliban-controlled government” and that “those 38 respondents have paid at least $10.9 million of U.S. taxpayer money to the Taliban-controlled government” – mostly through taxes paid to the Taliban.
The watchdog report said that “the $10.9 million” paid by the “implementing partners” of the U.S. government “is likely only a fraction of the total amount of U.S. assistance funds provided to the Taliban in taxes, fees, duties, and utilities because UN agencies receiving U.S. funds did not collect data or provide relevant information about their subawardees’ payments.” The report pointed out that “from October 2021 through September 2023, the UN received $1.6 billion in U.S. funding for programming in Afghanistan.”
“The direct collection of taxes, fees, duties, and utilities from U.S. government-funded activities risks contributing to the legitimization of the Taliban-controlled government in the eyes of the Afghan people,” the report added. “For example, implementing partners reported the Taliban uses aid delivery as propaganda by taking credit for the aid provided to the Afghan people.”
“We could not be more clear on this: The United States does not provide funding to the Taliban,” Matthew Miller, a Biden State Department spokesperson, said at a press briefing in 2023.
The GOP-led House Foreign Affairs Committee has pointed out that “Secretary of State Antony Blinken later admitted that around $10 million had been paid to the Taliban in the form of taxes after testifying before the committee in December 2024.”
Trump Admin stops millions from flowing into Afghanistan
President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Inauguration Day last January in which he said that “it is the policy of the United States that no further United States foreign assistance shall be disbursed in a manner that is not fully aligned with the foreign policy of the President of the United States.” The directive included a “90-day pause in United States foreign development assistance for assessment of programmatic efficiencies and consistency with United States foreign policy.”
SIGAR released an April 2025 report that said that “the United States terminated most aid to Afghanistan following a full scope review of U.S.-funded foreign assistance programs ordered by President Donald J. Trump in January 2025.”
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce also last April provided details on why the U.S. had suspended much of its funding to Afghanistan.
“The story here is that the largest group of World Food Program awards terminated were in Yemen and Afghanistan through an executive order that was issued based on concern that the funding was benefiting terrorist groups, including the Houthis and the Taliban,” she said. 
“These concerns with UN funding have been documented and discussed for years, which is why USAID paused all food assistance in northern Yemen through WFP, specifically to mitigate any interference by the Houthis, and has intermittently suspended food assistance across Afghanistan to mitigate Taliban interference.”
Bruce specifically referenced “the SIGAR report regarding Afghanistan and the Taliban, at least $11 million being siphoned or enriching the Taliban in the process of that food aid.”
The SIGAR report from December said that “following a review of U.S.-funded foreign assistance programs in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, the United States terminated all foreign assistance awards in Afghanistan.”
Taliban continues to support terrorists — including al-Qaeda — inside Afghanistan
Al-Qaeda was responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on U.S. soil, as well as a host of other murderous attacks worldwide. 
The Taliban, the Haqqani network, and al-Qaeda remain deeply intertwined in Afghanistan. 
The Washington Examiner has reported that the Taliban gave al Qaeda safe haven in Afghanistan before 9/11 and continued to protect al-Qaeda and fight alongside it for two decades after the U.S. invasion.
The UN ​​Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team released a report in late 2025 that found the Taliban continued to protect and shield terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, noting that while “the de facto authorities continue to maintain that no terrorist groups operate in, or from, its territory, such claims are not credible.”
The UN team said that the Taliban has “suppressed – although not eliminated – the threat from” ISIS-K, noting that ISIS-K “continues to pose serious threats within Afghanistan, regionally and beyond.” The analytic team added that some member states believe that ISIS-K “maintains opportunistic links to TTP, as well as to disillusioned elements within the Taliban” and that the level of ISIS-K “infiltration” into the Taliban structure is “considered to be extensive.”
The report from the UN team also stated the TTP “has conducted numerous high-profile attacks in Pakistan from Afghan soil” and that “continued Taliban harboring of TTP leadership in Afghanistan and its ongoing facilitation of TTP operations have brought relations to a critical point.”
The UN team also said that the Taliban authorities “continue to reject that there is any al-Qaeda presence in Afghanistan” but that al-Qaeda remained in Afghanistan. The report said al-Qaeda “provides ideological guidance to a range of groups” and “also acts as a service provider and multiplier for other groups in Afghanistan, providing them with training, advice, and logistical support.” 
The Taliban “continues to host and support the group,” the UN team said of al-Qaeda, and “senior al-Qaeda commanders are reported to be living in Kabul.”
The UN monitoring team said in its June 2023 report that at least three key leaders in the Taliban’s ruling government were “affiliated” or “associated” with al-Qaeda, stating that two Taliban provincial governors were “affiliated” with al-Qaeda while the Taliban’s deputy director of intelligence was also “associated” with al-Qaeda. Sirajuddin is also closely linked to al-Qaeda.
Taliban still holding Americans hostage
The Taliban continues to hold Americans hostage in Afghanistan.
CBS News reported this week that “Monday marks one year since Dennis Coyle, a 64-year-old academic from Colorado, was taken by force from his Kabul apartment by the Taliban” and that “his abduction came just six days after another American, Ryan Corbett, was released at the start of President Trump’s second term.”
The New York Times further reported this week that “the Taliban say they have only two” U.S. hostages – “identified by U.S. officials” as Coyle “and Polynesis Jackson, a former U.S. Army soldier whose reasons for being in the country remain murky.”
The news outlet also reported that Taliban officials “say they do not know the whereabouts of a third U.S. citizen, Mahmood Habibi, who the FBI says was arrested in Afghanistan in 2022 shortly after the CIA killed Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s leader, in Kabul.” The Times said the men who seized Habibi “said they were from the Taliban’s intelligence services.”
Trump Admin lifted bounties on Haqqani Taliban leaders
Just the News previously reported on how the Trump administration has lifted bounties on a number of key Haqqani Taliban leaders.
The State Department’s Reward for Justice website had previously said that the U.S. “is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information” on Sirajuddin Haqqani, a top leader in the Taliban government and a close ally of al-Qaeda. The bounty on Sirajuddin, now the head of the Taliban’s interior ministry, was first announced in 2009, and it was still in force until sometime in March 2025.
But the bounty was dropped shortly after the Taliban agreed to free George Glezmann – an American citizen held hostage since 2022. No mention of any linkage to U.S. military or foreign policy was made.
Sirajuddin remains on the FBI’s “Most Wanted” List.
The State Department also removed its $5 million bounty on Sirajuddin’s younger brother, Abdul Aziz Haqqani, and removed its $5 million bounty on Sirajuddin’s brother-in-law, Yahya Haqqani, last March. The U.S. government appears to have dropped a $5 million bounty for Sirajuddin’s uncle Khalil Haqqani shortly thereafter.
Questions of Collusion between the Haqqanis and ISIS-K
An ISIS-K suicide bomber named Abdul Rahman al-Logari – who had been freed by the Taliban from a prison at Bagram Air Base in mid-August 2021, mere weeks after the U.S. abandoned the base – has been identified as having carried out the suicide attack at Abbey Gate. That murder spree killed 13 U.S. service members and an estimated 170 Afghan civilians while wounding dozens of other U.S. troops and scores of Afghans in the crowd, on August 26, 2021.
Trump announced last March that the U.S. had extradited one of the ISIS-K terrorists responsible for the deadly Abbey Gate attack at the Karzai airport, Mohammad Sharifullah, captured with the help of Pakistani intelligence, was extradited to the U.S. last month. The FBI said that Sharifullah confessed to being involved in “route reconnaissance” in the lead-up to the attack.
The FBI said Sharifullah also confessed to a role in facilitating a June 2016 suicide bombing attack which killed more than ten guards tasked with protecting the Canadian embassy. At the time, that suicide bomber was widely reported to have been part of the Taliban – not ISIS-K – and the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
The UN monitoring team said in 2020 that some countries noted that most ISIS-K attacks include “involvement, facilitation, or the provision of technical assistance” by the Haqqani Network, and that ISIS-K “lacked the capability to launch complex attacks in Kabul on its own” without Haqqani help. The UN team also said it had “viewed communication intercepts in the wake of attacks that were claimed by ISIS-K that were traceable to known members of the Haqqani Network.”
The UN team said that “some countries “have reported tactical or commander-level collaboration between ISIL-K and the Haqqani Network.” According to Arab News, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that “we strongly reject this propaganda” and that “we have nothing in common (and don’t operate cells) with Daesh [ISIS-K].”
Sanaullah Ghafari, the head of ISIS-K, still has a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head. 
The UN monitoring team said in 2021 that one nation said that Ghafari was “previously a mid-level commander in the Haqqani Network” and that he continued to maintain cooperation with the Haqqanis. One UN member state said in June 2021 that ISIS-K leader Ghafari’s ongoing relationship with the Haqqanis provided ISIS-K with “key expertise and access to [attack] networks.” 
Gen. Austin Scott Miller, the commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan through July 2021, told Congress in 2024 that “I could never verify a Haqqani-ISIS nexus.” 
West Point’s Counterterrorism Center published an article in 2022 stating that Ghafari had joined “Taliban factions affiliated with the Haqqani network” and “had close links to the Haqqani network’s senior commanders.”
Major General Buck Elton and Captain Joshua Fruth assessed in late 2021 that “the Taliban may have leveraged ISIS–K as a proxy strawman layer of separation to oversee and/or facilitate the attack on U.S. service members and Afghan civilians” at the airport.
The trial for Sharifullah, the alleged co-conspirator in the Abbey Gate attack, is scheduled for February.

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