The money was a major source of funding for the Taliban in 2009. The suit alleges that as much as 40% of the funds for major projects was paid to insurgents. It’s illegal under the federal Anti-Terrorism Act to provide material support to the Taliban, yet none of the companies has been criminally prosecuted, reports NPR.
More than 100 Gold Star families have sued several American defense contractors for allegedly paying protection money to the Taliban while building projects in Afghanistan. The payments, the lawsuit argues, “aided and abetted terrorism” against Americans by enabling the Taliban to continue to fight — and kill U.S. troops.
The lawsuit was filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by the families of 143 U.S. troops and contract workers killed or wounded in Afghanistan from 2009 to 2017. They were “attacked by a Taliban-led terrorist insurgency that Defendants helped finance,” the suit states.
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