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| Afghanistan |
| Taliban Finances - Let's Follow the Money |
| 2021-08-18 |
| BLUF: [Radio Free Europe] The Taliban’s stated revenues of $1.6 billion corresponds with figures provided by the United Nations Security Council’s Sanctions Committee, which in May said the group’s earnings "range from $300 million to upwards of $1.5 billion per annum." The key to rising revenues has been profits from mining, growing from $35 million in 2016 to $464 million in 2020, according to one of the Taliban members interviewed, who added that China and the United Arab Emirates were the biggest buyers of the raw materials. The illicit opium trade also remained a major source of revenue for the Taliban. Around 90 percent of the world’s heroin comes from the Helmand River valley, a Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan. The Taliban taxes poppy farmers and is also involved in the trafficking of narcotics to neighboring countries, from where they end up in Europe and North America. "Yaqoob’s efforts to control and expand the organization’s finances mean that these plans can, according to officials close to him, be bankrolled to the tune of almost $2 billion a year," says the report. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #3 So they won't need financial support from America, right? right? |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2021-08-18 14:47 |
| #2 The CIA now joins the FBI as simply a passel of overpaid seatwarming bureuacrats. |
| Posted by: Bertie Crains2651 2021-08-18 09:03 |
| #1 China and the United Arab Emirates were the biggest buyers of the raw materials. Yes, actions certainly do have consequences. Could all of this somehow escaped the watchful eye of US intelligence agencies ? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2021-08-18 01:05 |