The extremists' source of income: the Taliban and drug trafficking

The Taliban's military success in Afghanistan would probably not have been possible without an important source of income: drug trafficking.

The Islamists earn millions of dollars from the sale of opium and heroin, and they quickly regained power in the country after the western troops withdrew.

Drugs are "the largest industry in the country other than war," says Barnett Rubin, a former advisor to the US State Department on Afghanistan. The United Nations estimates that the Taliban made more than $ 400 million in drug trafficking between 2018 and 2019. In a report by the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR) last May, an American official is quoted as saying that the Taliban derive up to 60 percent of their annual income from growing and trafficking drugs.

As a result, the United States has also tried to drain this source of income.

According to a SIGAR report, they spent more than eight billion dollars between 2002 and 2017 to deprive the Taliban of their profits from the opium and heroin trade.

Air strikes and raids on suspected laboratories were part of it.

This strategy failed.

Afghanistan is likely to remain the world's largest illegal opiate supplier under the Taliban, say current and former American officials and experts.

Sympathy for the Taliban among peasants and workers

The fight against drug trafficking "has not really had much success," admits retired US Army General Joseph Votel, who commanded the US Central Command from 2016 to 2019. On the contrary: Instead, it fueled anger at the West-backed government in Kabul and brought sympathy for the Taliban among peasants and workers. Many of them can only feed their families thanks to opium production.

The Taliban, in turn, have learned their lesson, says Vanda Felbab-Brown, a scientist at the Brookings Institute. They banned the cultivation of poppies for opium production in 2000. At that time they were already in power and with this step they were looking for international recognition. However, the ban backfired because it cost them a lot of sympathy among local farmers. "That sparked a huge political storm against the Taliban and was one of the reasons why there were so many deserters after the US invasion," said Felbab-Brown.

It is therefore unlikely that the Taliban will ban poppy cultivation again, experts say.

"Any future government must act cautiously to avoid alienating its rural followers and provoking resistance and violent rebellion," said David Mansfield, a leading researcher on drug trafficking in Afghanistan.

Even when wheat prices soared, Afghan farmers preferred to grow poppy seeds and extract opium gum, which is processed into morphine and heroin.

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Afghanistan's highest opium production to date has been recorded in three of the past four years.

Even as the corona pandemic raged, poppy cultivation rose 37 percent last year, it said.

The estimated record high of opium production was achieved in 2017 with 9,900 tons.

The UNODC reports that this brought about 1.4 billion dollars in sales into the coffers of the farmers.

That corresponds to about seven percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).

If export and imported chemicals are added, the total illegal opiate economy is likely to be up to $ 6.6 billion this year.

The Taliban and officials have long been involved in drug trafficking, experts say.

Legal import and export fees

However, some aficionados of Afghanistan consider such assessments to be exaggerated.

Drugs expert Mansfield, for example, estimates that the Taliban could earn a maximum of $ 40 million a year from illegal opiates - mainly through levies on opium production, heroin laboratories and drug deliveries.

The extremists would make more money by collecting tolls for legal imports and exports at roadside checkpoints.

The United Nations and Washington, however, assume that the Taliban are involved in all facets of the drug trade - from poppy cultivation, opium production and trade, to levying “taxes” on growers and drug laboratories, to levying smuggling fees for supplies to Africa, Europe, Canada, Russia, the Middle East and other parts of Asia.

Now a new economic and humanitarian crisis looms due to the destruction caused by the war, the millions of internally displaced persons, cuts in development aid and the loss of local spending due to withdrawn foreign troops.

This is likely to drive many poor Afghans into drug trafficking, without which they cannot survive.

This dependency, in turn, threatens to exacerbate instability in the country as the Taliban, other armed groups, warlords and corrupt officials vie for drug profits and power.

"Largest drug-financed terrorist organization in the world"

Some UN and US officials fear that Afghanistan's slide into chaos will create conditions for even higher levels of illegal opiate production.

“More production brings drugs at a cheaper and more attractive price and thus wider accessibility,” fears Cesar Gudes, who heads the UNODC office in Kabul.

Even now, he estimates, more than 80 percent of the world's opium and heroin deliveries come from the country in the Hindu Kush.

"We stood on the sidelines and, unfortunately, allowed the Taliban to become possibly the largest drug-financed terrorist organization in the world," said a US official.