Families of those killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and other victims are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to give them access to roughly $3.5 billion in frozen Afghan central bank assets as they seek to collect judgments previously entered against the Taliban.
In a petition filed Aug. 31 in Havlish v. The Taliban, the plaintiffs asked the high court to review a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that prevented them from seizing funds held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to satisfy those judgments.
The dispute centers on the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002, commonly known as TRIA.
Under that law, victims who have obtained terrorism-related judgments may pursue blocked assets belonging to a terrorist party, including property belonging to an agency or instrumentality of such a party.
The petitioners maintain that the Second Circuit wrongly imposed an additional condition, requiring that the connection between the terrorist group and the owner of the assets already have been in place at the time the property was initially frozen.
The claims stem from a series of lawsuits filed against the Taliban over the Sept. 11 attacks and other acts of terrorism.
In the Havlish case, relatives and estates of Americans murdered on Sept. 11 secured a default judgment establishing the Taliban’s liability in December 2011.
According to the petition submitted to the Supreme Court, approximately $2.09 billion in compensatory damages awarded to those plaintiffs remains unpaid.
Additional plaintiffs, including insurers and victims of subsequent terrorist attacks, have also obtained judgments against the Taliban.
The battle over the money took on new significance after the Taliban captured Kabul on Aug. 15, 2021, giving the group de facto control over Afghanistan’s central bank, Da Afghanistan Bank, known as DAB.
At the time, approximately $7 billion belonging to DAB was being held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The Biden administration froze those funds and later arranged for half — $3.5 billion — to be placed in a separate fund established to benefit the Afghan population while preventing the Taliban from controlling the money.
The other approximately $3.5 billion has become the primary focus of efforts by the Sept. 11 victims and other judgment holders to collect what they are owed.
Those attempts were unsuccessful in the lower courts.
In August 2025, the Second Circuit upheld the decision preventing the plaintiffs from obtaining the assets, leading them to seek Supreme Court review.
The new petition argues that the appeals court’s interpretation is inconsistent with the language Congress used in TRIA as well as decisions from other appellate courts. The plaintiffs also contend that the ruling leaves terrorism victims with judgments worth billions of dollars but no ability to collect them.
The case against the Taliban represents one part of the extensive litigation that has followed the Sept. 11 attacks, including cases involving allegations against foreign governments and organizations.
Separately, Sept. 11 families have pursued litigation against Saudi Arabia under the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, legislation enacted by Congress in 2016.
In August 2025, U.S. District Judge George B. Daniels denied another Saudi attempt to have those claims dismissed, finding that sufficient evidence existed for the litigation to move forward.
Saudi Arabia appealed that ruling, and proceedings involving the kingdom in the district court have been placed on hold while the appeal is considered.
The Second Circuit is scheduled to hear oral arguments in that appeal on Oct. 7, 2026.
The continuing Saudi litigation is expected to focus in part on newly uncovered material, including records concerning allegations that Saudi individuals provided assistance to some of the Sept. 11 hijackers.
Although the cases involving the Taliban and Saudi Arabia raise separate legal issues, the Sept. 11 families pursuing them share the broader goal of obtaining accountability through the American court system.
Whether the Supreme Court agrees to take up the Taliban case could have enormous financial consequences. If the justices decline to intervene or ultimately uphold the lower-court ruling, the approximately $3.5 billion in frozen Afghan assets would remain unavailable to the judgment holders; a ruling in the victims’ favor could open a path for the funds to be used to satisfy judgments against the Taliban.
{Matzav.com}
