{"id":68576,"date":"2021-11-15T11:00:48","date_gmt":"2021-11-15T00:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=68576"},"modified":"2021-11-15T10:40:56","modified_gmt":"2021-11-14T23:40:56","slug":"the-narco-terrorist-taliban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-narco-terrorist-taliban\/","title":{"rendered":"The narco-terrorist Taliban"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

The strategic folly<\/a> of US President Joe Biden\u2019s Afghanistan policy has been laid bare in recent weeks. First, the country came back under the control of the Pakistan-reared Taliban. The announcement of the interim government\u2019s composition<\/a> then dashed any remaining (naive) hope that this Taliban regime would be different from the one the United States and its allies ousted in 2001. Beyond the cabinet including a who\u2019s who of international terrorism, narcotics kingpins<\/a> occupy senior positions.<\/p>\n

Afghanistan accounts<\/a> for 85% of the global acreage under opium cultivation, making the Taliban the world\u2019s largest drug cartel<\/a>. It controls and taxes opioid production, oversees exports, and shields smuggling networks. This is essential to its survival. According to a recent report<\/a> by the United Nations Security Council monitoring team, the production and trafficking of poppy-based and synthetic drugs remain \u2018the Taliban\u2019s largest single source of income\u2019. So reliant is the Taliban on narcotics trafficking that its leaders have at times fought<\/a> among themselves over revenue-sharing.<\/p>\n

The Taliban is hoping to expand its drug income as much as possible. Since its takeover, prices of opium in Afghanistan have more than tripled<\/a>. In India\u2014which is situated<\/a> between the world\u2019s two main opium-producing centres, the Pakistan\u2013Afghanistan\u2013Iran \u2018golden crescent\u2019 and the Myanmar\u2013Thailand\u2013Laos \u2018golden triangle\u2019\u2014seizures of Afghan-origin heroin have increased. As the UN Office on Drugs and Crime warns<\/a>, the economic crisis Afghanistan currently faces will only increase the appeal of illicit crop cultivation for local farmers.<\/p>\n

The problem extends beyond opioids. In recent years, Afghanistan has drastically expanded<\/a> its production of methamphetamine. The appeal lies in the fact that meth offers producers a higher profit margin than heroin, owing to lower overhead costs and inexpensive ingredients, especially now that its chemical precursor, pseudoephedrine<\/a>\u2014a common ingredient in cold medications\u2014is being produced locally.<\/p>\n

Last year, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction warned<\/a> that Afghanistan\u2019s meth industry could soon be as large as its heroin industry. While the Taliban was not yet in control of Kabul at the time, it controlled the majority<\/a> of Afghanistan\u2019s small, clandestine meth labs.<\/p>\n

The Taliban uses several smuggling routes to move opiates. It moves output to Western Europe via the Caucasus and the Balkans, and from there all the way to North America<\/a>. With the help of the Tajikistan-based terrorist group Jamaat Ansarullah<\/a>, it also uses a northern route to Russia. The southeastern route, which snakes through Pakistan, is enabled by Pakistani security officials<\/a>, who cooperate with the Taliban and smuggling syndicates, known locally as \u2018tanzeems\u2019<\/em>, in exchange for bribes.<\/p>\n

In 2008, a Taliban drug trafficker was recorded<\/a> boasting that most of his product ended up abroad. \u2018Good\u2019, he gloated. \u2018May God turn all the infidels into dead corpses. Whether it is by opium or by shooting, this is our common goal.\u2019 With the Taliban channelling profits from drug sales directly into its terror machine, the connection<\/a> between Islamist violence and drug trafficking could not be starker.<\/p>\n

This is not exclusive to the Taliban; Islamist groups like Boko Haram, al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda are also linked to drug trafficking. But not all terrorist groups are on board with this approach. As a 2020 UN Security Council report<\/a> points out, the Islamic State\u2013Khorasan\u2014IS\u2019s Afghan arm\u2014opposes the drug trade.<\/p>\n

This is one reason why the outfit is an enemy of the Taliban, despite the two groups\u2019 longstanding personal relationships, common history of struggle and shared belief in violent Islamism. In fact, when IS-K had control of the Afghan border province of Nangarhar, it blocked<\/a> the Taliban\u2019s trafficking routes into Pakistan. The link was restored only when the US and Afghan government forces smashed the IS-K stronghold there.<\/p>\n

This highlights the failure of the US\u2014and the West more broadly\u2014to recognise the complex but clear links between drug trafficking and Islamist terrorism. Had the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan been followed by a US campaign to arrest and prosecute Taliban leaders for their narcotics-trafficking activities in American courts, the group\u2019s appeal among fundamentalist Muslims might have been severely diminished.<\/p>\n

Such a plan was proposed in 2012. In a 240-page memo<\/a>, the US Drug Enforcement Administration and several Justice Department officials recommended prosecuting 26 senior Taliban leaders and allied drug lords for criminal conspiracy. A similar approach<\/a> worked in Colombia, and helped to force the narcotics-funded Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to make peace<\/a> with the Colombian government in 2016, after 52 years of guerrilla war.<\/p>\n

But successive US presidents refused to use this strategy against the Taliban, which was a strategic mistake with costs that are only beginning to be revealed. By allowing the Taliban to enrich and sustain itself with drug profits during the 20-year war in Afghanistan, the US contributed to its own humiliating defeat at the hands of a narco-terrorist organisation.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not too late for the US to start targeting the Taliban as a drug cartel through its federal courts. After all, Afghan-origin opioids have resulted in high rates<\/a> of drug addiction and deaths around the world, from the US and Europe to Africa and Asia. And, given Afghanistan\u2019s economic woes, the Taliban has a strong incentive to ramp up production and trafficking.<\/p>\n

By highlighting the nexus<\/a> between Islamist terrorism and the global narcotics trade, US indictments of the Taliban\u2019s drug kingpins would help to build multilateral cooperation to crush the group\u2019s primary source of income, such as by blocking shipments and seizing illicit profits, often parked in banks and real-estate investments abroad.<\/p>\n

If the US does not lead an international effort to tackle Afghanistan\u2019s opioid and meth production, the Taliban\u2019s power\u2014and ability to commit atrocities<\/a>\u2014will only grow and its narco-state will serve as a haven<\/a> for al-Qaeda and other violent jihadist groups. As matters stand, the world can expect a major surge in international terrorism and drug overdoses in the months and years ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The strategic folly of US President Joe Biden\u2019s Afghanistan policy has been laid bare in recent weeks. First, the country came back under the control of the Pakistan-reared Taliban. The announcement of the interim government\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":482,"featured_media":68580,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[43,2026,546,1088,127],"class_list":["post-68576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-afghanistan","tag-illicit-drugs","tag-organised-crime","tag-taliban","tag-terrorism"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe narco-terrorist Taliban | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-narco-terrorist-taliban\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The narco-terrorist Taliban | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The strategic folly of US President Joe Biden\u2019s Afghanistan policy has been laid bare in recent weeks. 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