Demonstrators in Afghanistan�s capital Saturday condemned President Joe Biden�s order freeing up $3.5 billion in Afghan assets held in the U.S. for families of America�s 9/11 victims � saying the money belongs to Afghans.

Protesters who gathered outside Kabul�s grand Eid Gah mosque asked America for financial compensation for the tens of thousands of Afghans killed during the last 20 years of war in Afghanistan.

Biden�s order, signed Friday, allocates another $3.5 billion in Afghan assets for humanitarian aid to a trust fund to be managed by the U.N. to provide aid to Afghans. The country�s economy is teetering on the brink of collapse after international money stopped coming into Afghanistan with the arrival in mid-August of the Taliban.

Afghanistan�s Central Bank called on Biden to reverse his order and release the funds to it, saying in a statement Saturday that they belonged to the people of Afghanistan and not a government, party or group.

Torek Farhadi, a financial adviser to Afghanistan�s former U.S.-backed government, questioned the U.N. managing Afghan Central Bank reserves. He said those funds are not meant for humanitarian aid but �to back up the country�s currency, help in monetary policy and manage the country�s balance of payment.�

�These reserves belong to the people of Afghanistan, not the Taliban … Biden�s decision is one-sided and does not match with international law,� said Farhadi. �No other country on Earth makes such confiscation decisions about another country�s reserves.�

Afghanistan has about $9 billion in assets overseas, including the $7 billion in the United States. The rest is mostly in Germany, the United Arab Emirates and Switzerland.

�What about our Afghan people who gave many sacrifices and thousands of losses of lives?� asked the demonstration�s organizer, Abdul Rahman, a civil society activist.

Rahman said he planned to organize more demonstrations across the capital to protest Biden�s order. �This money belongs to the people of Afghanistan, not to the United States. This is the right of Afghans,� he said.

Misspelled placards in English accused the United States of being cruel and of stealing the money of Afghans.

Taliban political spokesman Mohammad Naeem accused the Biden administration in a tweet late Friday of showing �the lowest level of humanity … of a country and a nation.�

Biden�s Friday order generated a social media storm with Twitter saying #USA_stole_money_from_afghan was trending among Afghans. Tweets repeatedly pointed out that the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nationals, not Afghans.

Obaidullah Baheer, a lecturer at the American University in Afghanistan and a social activist, tweeted: �Let�s remind the world that #AfghansDidntCommit911 and that #BidenStealingAfgMoney!�

Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was brought to Afghanistan by Afghan warlords after being expelled from Sudan in 1996. Those same warlords would later ally with the U.S.-led coalition to oust the Taliban in 2001. However, it was Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar who refused to hand over bin Laden to the U.S. after the devastating 9/11 attacks that killed thousands.

Still, some analysts took to Twitter to question Biden�s order.

Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the U.S.-based Wilson Center, called Biden�s order to divert $3.5 billion away from Afghanistan �heartless.�

�It�s great that $3.5B in new humanitarian aid for Afghanistan has been freed up. But to take another $3.5B that belongs to the Afghan people, and divert it elsewhere–that is misguided and quite frankly heartless,� he tweeted.

Kugelman also said the opposition to Biden�s order crossed Afghanistan�s wide political divide.

�I can�t remember the last time so many people of such vastly different worldviews were so united over a US policy decision on Afghanistan,� he tweeted.

(AP)