By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks and the August 7, 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa cannot seize $3.5 billion of Afghanistan central bank assets to address the Taliban's role in the attacks, a divided federal appeals court ruled on Thursday.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) was shielded under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) from having to give up assets blocked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, because it qualified as an agency or instrumentality of Afghanistan.

Attack victims also failed to show DAB was........

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