Despite red flags, USAID ended up funding the Pakistan-based Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), a front for Hafiz Saeed-led Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). USAID funded the FIF and LeT, which led multiple terror attacks in India, despite it being banned by the US government.

Money from USAID, a statutory body of the US government, went to fund an anti-India outfit labelled a terrorist organisation by the American government itself. The funding of the Pakistan-based Falahs-e-Insaniat Foundation, which is a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), was brought to light even as US President Donald Trump started dismantling USAID with an executive order.

The Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF) and LeT were involved in the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai in which 166 people were killed. Six Americans were among the 166 people mercilessly killed by the Pakistani terrorists.

What is more shocking is despite coming under probe over funding of an Islamist charity with links to terror organisations, USAID kept releasing funds to it.

Now, Trump's executive order on American funding of foreign assistance has placed a sword hanging on the US Agency for International Development (USAID). 

Though this might hit several projects in India, there is a silver lining as USAID money was being used to fund Islamic terrorism, including ones trying to bleed India.

One of the beneficiaries of USAID, which funds NGOs across the globe, was Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), a front for LeT.

What's shocking is that American taxpayers money was used to fund an organisation banned by the US government in 2010. Despite the ban, the USAID actually ended up funding the FIF.

"The FIF is a Pakistan-based organisation that is closely connected to banned terrorist group LeT and its humanitarian front Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD)," states a US State Department document, banning the FIF.

Michael T McCaul, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, highlighted USAID's indirect funding of terror organisations in a 2023 letter to USAID Administrator, Samantha Power.

"In October 2021, USAID awarded $110,000 to Helping Hand for Relief and Development (HHRD) through the Ocean Freight Reimbursement Program. This award was made despite longstanding, detailed allegations that HHRD is connected to designated terrorist organizations, terror financiers, and extremist groups," wrote McCaul.

In November 2019, three Members of Congress publicly urged the State Department to investigate these alleged ties to terrorism in an official letter, claimed McCaul in his letter. He also called for a halt in funding to the NGO until a comprehensive review of these allegations was conducted.

Despite the HHRD being under probe for funding terror organisations and risks being flagged, the USAID released another tranche of funding in 2023.

Under the Biden administration in 2023, the USAID gave $73,000 to HHRD.

Trump has called the USAID a part of the "deep state" while cracking down on it.

Such funding of outfits designated terror organisations by the US government itself couldn't have taken place without people in top positions pulling the strings. There is a need for detailed, transparent investigation. So, the dismantling of USAID by Trump has a silver lining for India.