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| Afghanistan |
| Afghanistan: Taliban drug trade linked to senior officials |
| 2008-07-12 |
| (AKI) - (by Syed Saleem Shahzad) - Opium cultivation is the prime source of income for the Taliban and enables the militants to buy arms for their insurgency against the Afghan government. But they rely on an efficient distribution system and regional experts believe that senior Afghan officials are colluding with the Taliban for their own gain. Zaid Hamid, security expert and head of the Pakistani think-tank, BrassTacks, told Adnkronos International (AKI) that several players were involved in the game of drug trafficking and the collusion of Afghan officials was crucial. "The total drug economy of Afghanistan is estimated to be 150 billion dollars out of which only one billion dollars returns to Afghanistan," Zaid Hamid told AKI. "The rest is laundered through the international banking system which indicates that several other players are involved in the game of drug trafficking and the receipts to the Afghan insurgency are very small." Hamid said that Russian and Chinese anti-narcotics forces had recently told their colleagues in Pakistan that the flow of drugs from Afghanistan into their respective countries had reached a crisis. "They are facing a crisis-like situation," he told AKI. "The figures provided to Pakistan suggested the majority of the drug smuggling is taking place through northern corridors (a non Taliban area)". "These routes linked Afghanistan to Central Asian states, Afghanistan to Russia and from the Afghan province of Badakshan to Tajikistan and to China. The third route is coming from Afghanistan to Pakistan to the UAE (United Arab Emirates) through the Arabian Sea. "With this course, the receipts of money coming back to Afghanistan is very small, according to notes given by the Russians to Pakistan." Former Pakistani spy chief, Ret. Gen. Hamid Gul, told AKI the drug trade had been one source for fuelling the Afghan resistance against Soviet Russia. Gul, former head of Pakistan's Inter-Services-Intelligence, was the spymaster and the main architect of the Mujahadeen's resistance to the Soviets during the late 1980s. "The real component in this economy has always been the external factors, not the local farmers and the warlords," he said. "This account is fully documented on how the CIA was involved in the 1980s to raise the money for the Afghan resistance against the Soviets through the smuggling of drugs and of course CIA officials also raised money for themselves." Gul was head of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence service between 1987 and 1989 and worked closely with the CIA during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. He reportedly became disillusioned with the US when it failed to follow through on Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal and called on Muslims to unite and confront the US in its war on terror after the September 11 attacks. Various statistics confirmed the claim that several players are involved in the game of drug trafficking beside the Taliban. Gul endorsed British media reports that Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the current Afghan president was involved in the drug trade. "Everybody in Afghanistan and Pakistan knows that the powerful person in the distribution of drugs is Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of Hamid Karzai," Gul told AKI. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 Hamid said that Russian and Chinese anti-narcotics forces had recently told their colleagues in Pakistan that the flow of drugs from Afghanistan into their respective countries had reached a crisis. Just goes to show that every cloud has a silver lining. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque6305 2008-07-12 11:52 |
| #1 Yeah, Karzai, our tool, has been bought out by Talibunnies. Time to cut him off. Why have the poppy fields not been flamed with napalm ? Bush/Cheney need to come up with some idiot answer. An ideal opportunity for Rice to spout another non-sensical explanation before she departs to the garbage pile of history. |
| Posted by: Woozle Elmeter 2700 2008-07-12 11:07 |