Rare Earth Minerals in Afghanistan: 'China big winner, Taliban to divert windfall in profits to terror activities'

China is set to move to Afghanistan to mine rare earth minerals, media reports said quoting a US Congressman on Tuesday.

The US failed to grab the opportunity
"China will be moving in. There are rare earth minerals in (Afghanistan). I don't know why we didn't work with the Afghans to develop that, but we never did. And now, you're going to have China going in mining these rare earth minerals," Sputnik quoted Ranking Republican on the US House Foreign Affairs Committee Michael McCaul as saying on Tuesday.

Huge profits to change equations in the region
"As a result, China is the winner and the United States is the loser in this situation as are the Afghan people. The Taliban will have a huge windfall profit from this that they'll put into terrorist financing," he added, Sputnik reported.

Former US president Donald Trump in 2007 agreed with the Afghan government that to rapidly develop Afghanistan's rare-earth minerals through US companies as a way to offset the costs of the war there.

Afghanistan is facing its worst-ever crisis in decades as the country's government fell on Sunday and President Ashraf Ghani fled the country soon after the Taliban entered Kabul. The terror group now controls the capital and has declared its victory over the government.

(With ANI inputs)