August 17, 2005: The Taliban are trying to disrupt the September 18 national elections. Their efforts are scattered and largely ineffectual. American and Afghan counterattacks are killing many of the Taliban, and chasing most of them back into Pakistan, or to their Afghan villages. Someone is putting up millions of dollars to pay these guys, as few of them will risk their lives for free any more. Some of the money is believed to be coming from the drug trade. The heroin trade is bringing billions of dollars a year into the Afghan economy, and some of that is being spent to try and disrupt anti-drug efforts. Taliban gunmen are available for that.
So was this guy: KUWAIT CITY - A Pakistani man has been detained in Kuwait over alleged links with a failed heroin smuggling operation and is being questioned about possible links with terrorist networks, a security source said on August 15. Ali Mir Ahmed, 23, who worked as a hairdresser in Kuwait City was detained over the shipment seized on August 13, said the source. It said authorities nabbed the heroin with a market value of 200 million dollars smuggled inside a shipment of 88 hand-made carpets to Kuwait airport. The authorities found with Ahmed documents showing the carpets were shipped to him from inside Afghanistan. |