The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) denied The Telegraph’s report that the IEA’s senior officials profited millions from the World Cup by providing the construction equipment used to erect the stadiums in Qatar.
The IEA’s spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, stated on Saturday, November 26, “The claim of ‘The Telegraph’ that some members of the IEA have earned a lot of money due to the construction of a stadium in Qatar is far from the truth.”
The Telegraph’s report stated that senior IEA officials used lucrative salaries that came from the peace talks to purchase and then subcontract heavy equipment for tournament infrastructure over the past 10 years, citing a source from IEA’s Doha office.
“The World Cup was a golden duck,” a Qatar-based source from IEA’s Qatar office revealed to The Telegraph. “The Taliban invested heavily in the World Cup construction and they were paid millions.”
IEA’s stance called the report by The Telegraph “propaganda” and the “mission” of western media to “spoil” the minds against IEA.
Two different senior Taliban sources detailed the lavish living expenses paid to officials during the peace talks, with the money used to buy large construction equipment, according to the report.
It is also said that some IEA officials had multiple pieces of machinery that earned £10,000 each per month adding up to millions.
As part of their efforts to aid in the facilitation of peace negotiations with the West, it is believed that the Qatari authorities, with the consent of the US and UN, gave members of the Taliban’s political office in Doha a monthly allowance worth thousands of pounds.
The monthly payments were allegedly “monitored in cooperation” with the US, including the overall sums and how and where it was spent, according to the Qataris.
Qatar, which has been at the center of numerous labor-related scandals, is now being accused of even more things.
The building of Qatar’s stadiums and infrastructure is said to have claimed the lives of more than 6,000 migrant workers. —KP
