American and other global firms helped finance a Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan that killed or wounded US soldiers and civilians, alleges a new lawsuit.
Filed on Friday, the suit claims the contractors made protection payments to the Taliban because they had lucrative businesses in post-9/11 Afghanistan.
Payments were made to convince the insurgents into refraining from attacks on their business interests, according to the suit filed by families of more than 100 people who were killed and wounded in Afghanistan from 2009 to 2017.
“Those protection payments aided and abetted terrorism by directly funding an al-Qaeda-backed Taliban insurgency that killed and injured thousands of Americans,” the lawsuit said.
According to mainstream US media outlets, the payments to the Taliban were rationalized as a necessary cost of business.
The firms used a network of subcontractors and private security groups to transfer cash to Taliban agents, while the group was waging a violent campaign against US forces and their allies, CNN said.
“Defendants decided that buying off the terrorists was the most efficient way to operate their businesses while managing their own security risks ..,” the lawsuit says.
MTN Group, a telecommunications firm, DAI Global, the Louis Berger Group Inc. and Black & Veatch Special Projects Corp, are some of the contractors for USAID in Afghanistan, taking in more than $1 billion of the agency’s funding.
The plaintiffs, 385 Americans, have accused the companies of violating the Anti-Terrorism Act.
