[WashingtonFreeBeacon] Afghanistan's opium production skyrocketed in 2021, potentially providing the Taliban ...Arabic for students... government a source of revenue between $1.8 billion and $2.7 billion, according to a new report from the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR).
The war-torn nation's illegal opiate production in 2021 ranked as the third-highest recorded since the United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... began reporting it in 1994. It comprised between 9 and 14 percent of Afghanistan's gross domestic product and exceeded the value of all of the country’s officially recorded legal exports in 2020.
The surge in opium production comes as the U.S. government allocates millions to combat the spread of illicit drugs in the country, according to SIGAR's latest report, released on Wednesday.
While the Taliban has vowed to combat opium production—even though it could serve a lucrative source of revenue for the terrorist regime—SIGAR says it "has seen no evidence that the Taliban are enforcing or can enforce such a ban. On the contrary, the opium trade in Afghanistan appears to be flourishing."
In fact, opium dealers, who once operated in the shadows while the U.S.-backed former government was in power, are now selling their drugs from "stalls in village markets," according to SIGAR's report. "Opium poppy farmers, a key constituency for the Taliban, are likely to resist a ban," the watchdog said.
The report quoted one opium seller as saying that the Taliban have "achieved what they have thanks to opium. None of us will let them ban opium unless the international community helps the Afghan people."
The Biden administration, the guys that caused the debacle in Afghanistan ...the collection of boodlers, grifters, hangers-on, and self-proclaimed experts affiliated with the Biden Crime Family. Entrusted with an entire nation as the result of a suspicious election, they set about happily implementing stuff they absorbed in college, all of which blew up and splattered the rest of us... , meanwhile, has renewed its efforts to inject millions of dollars in U.S. aid into the country without formal ties with the Taliban or officially recognizing its rule.
The State Department reported last year that the U.S. Agency for International Development had "suspended all contact with the Afghan government, and terminated, suspended, or paused all on-budget assistance." The latest report, however, discloses that USAID has "resumed some off-budget," U.S.-managed activities in Afghanistan.
The White House announced last month it sent an additional $308 million in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, where poverty and hunger has run rampant since the Taliban in August 2021 retook control of the country amid a bungled evacuation of U.S. forces.
Still, Afghanistan's citizens are starving. More than half of the population faces a "tsunami of hunger," according to the United Nations. This is the result of "record drought, rising food prices, internal displacement, and the severe economic downturn and collapse of public services following the Taliban's return to power in August."
Around 22.8 million Afghans will be at "potentially life-threatening levels of hunger this winter," with around 8.7 million facing "near-famine conditions." Another one million are at risk of dying, according to SIGAR, which cites statistics from a recent Integrated Food Security Phase Classification study.
Up to 97 percent of Afghanistan's population is now at risk of slipping below the poverty line by mid-2022 "as a result of the worsening political and economic crises," according to the report.
Additionally, the Biden administration's failure to evacuate skilled Afghan soldiers who worked for the country's former fighting force has likely led to them joining the ISIS terrorist group, according to the SIGAR report.
In an interview with former Afghan general Sami Sadat, SIGAR learned that "Afghan fighters, especially commandos and intelligence officers, could lead to IS-K's resurgence. Sadat said these people would be especially vulnerable to IS-K recruitment. Sadat added that this issue needs to be addressed more systematically, noting that IS-K may have the capability to take eastern Afghanistan quickly and establish itself in Kabul within a year."
#4
A month or so ago there was news about "opium trade plummets" and I, and several others here, opined that it was the Taliban weeding out the 'middlemen' in their 'Opium Patch' causing the stoppage.
#7
The Taliban did the same thing the first time they took power: first shut down the drug cartels, then when they needed the money started up production under their control. This time they need more money, and right away.
#8
They have had their hand in it the whole time. ISI has been keeping up for years also, they are just taking control of the market. Same thing gangs in the inner cities do.
Posted by: Chris ||
02/05/2022 21:50 Comments ||
Top||
[Dawn] In a major move towards easing restrictions on Afghanistan, the United States has now decided to allow international banks to transfer money to the country for humanitarian purposes.
A directive issued by the US Department of Treasury earlier this week also allows aid groups to pay teachers and healthcare workers at state-run institutions without the fear of breaching US sanctions on the Taliban ...Arabic for students... "Both US and non-US companies can ship food to Afghanistan, and banks can process financial transfers and other transactions associated with food shipments to Afghanistan," said the directive issued in Washington.
The Treasury also outlined permitted transactions involving the Taliban, which includes the blacklisted Haqqani Network.
These include signing agreements to provide aid directly to the Afghan people, general aid coordination, including import administration, and sharing of office space.
"Payments of taxes, fees, or import duties to, or the purchase or receipt of permits, licences, or public utility services from" the Taliban, Haqqani Network or any entity in which they own more than 50 per cent is authorised for humanitarian operations, the directive said.
It explained that "US sanctions do not specifically prohibit the exportation or re-exportation of agricultural commodities, medicine, and medical devices to Afghanistan".
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control also issued a general licence, which authorises "US persons to engage in all transactions that are ordinarily incident and necessary to the exportation or re-exportation of agricultural commodities, medicine, medical devices, replacement parts, and components for medical devices, or software updates for medical devices to Afghanistan".
The directive, known as GL 15, allows persons in third countries as well to purchase these items specifically for resale to Afghanistan. Non-US persons may engage in or facilitate transactions that would be authorised for US persons under GL 15.
GL 15 also authorises US persons to engage in transactions or activities that are ordinarily incidental and necessary to authorised exports or re-exports, including the processing of financial transactions and related clearing and settlement involving privately-owned and state-owned banks in Afghanistan.
The United States froze about $9.5 billion of Afghan assets after the fall of Kabul in August last to prevent the Taliban from accessing them. The frozen Afghan assets are the second-largest seized by the US since the Iranian assets frozen in the 1980s.
Last week, UN Secretary General António Guterres reiterated his appeal for a conditional release of the frozen funds with a warning that Afghanistan was "hanging by a thread".
"Babies being sold to feed their siblings. Freezing health facilities overflowing with malnourished children. People burn their possessions to keep warm. Livelihoods across the country have been lost," he said.
[AlAhram] The military investigation into the deadly attack during the Afghanistan evacuation has concluded that a suicide bomber, carrying 20 pounds of explosives packed with ball bearings, acted alone, and that the deaths of more than 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members were not preventable.
The blast at Abbey Gate outside the Kabul airport on Aug. 26 killed 11 U.S. Marines, a sailor and a soldier, who were screening the thousands of Afghans frantically trying to get onto one of the crowded flights leaving the country after the Taliban ...Arabic for students... takeover. ISIS grabbed credit for the attack.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/05/2022 01:12 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[16 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
Flagrant Foggy Bottom and Klingon disinformation effort.
[OneIndia] The Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... Khorasan Province has blasted China and the Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... for maintaining close ties with each other. The ISIS-K also shared an image of the members of the Taliban praying alongside the ISI chief.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/05/2022 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Hoping to intimidate Black Lives Matters Black Bloc activists into staying home for a change instead of rampaging through the streets?
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is activating the Minnesota National Guard as the federal trial of three former Minneapolis police officers nears its end in St. Paul
The trial of former MPD officers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao will enter its third week on Monday for violating George Floyd’s civil rights
The Guard will also be ready to respond if needed in Minneapolis following Amir Locke police killing, Walz says
The move came in response to a request from the City of St. Paul
Order would also allow National Guard members to assist police in Minneapolis following the shooting of Amir Locke
A Minneapolis police officer on Wednesday fatally shot Locke, 22, as cops executed a no-knock search warrant
Locke was seen wrapped in a blanket on a couch when officers entered the apartment, and displayed a handgun as they shouted at him to show his hands
The footage was released after more than 36 hours of unanswered questions and calls for transparency over the shooting
Minneapolis Police Department said Locke pointed a loaded gun 'in the direction of officers'
On Friday, Locke's parents, Andre Locke and Karen Wells said their son was 'executed' by a Minneapolis SWAT team that woke him from a deep sleep
#1
No-knock raids are disasters waiting to happen. Target is stunned and unclear on what is happening and logically assumes it is a break-in with deadly intent; defends himself and gets shot or shoots a cop.
#9
Show some respect, you heartless bastages! St. George has been drug-free for over 600 days now. Credit where credit is due. OK, some of the credit also goes to the Minneapolis Police. It takes a village, right?
#10
Not OK to call the National Guard when Trump was president but we don't want any riots while Brandon is in the White House. He has enough bad optics as it is.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/05/2022 13:36 Comments ||
Top||
#11
I've heard that the St. Floyd method of drug rehab has a 100% success rate
[OneIndia] The anti-India sentiment from Canada is a well known fact. Pro-Khalistan
...the idea of an independent Sikh homeland in the Indian (and Pak, but they don't dwell on that) Punjab. The local troublemakers are financed by the Sikh diaspora, who love the idea of the folks they left behind murdering their neighbours before dying romantically for a hopeless idea, with training and additional funding from Pakistain’s ISI as yet another arrow in their quiver aimed at the Indian throat since the 1980s....
groups such as the Sikhs for Justice have been trying to rake up sentiments and revive the Khalistan movement in Punjab.
The biggest concern for the Indian security agencies of late has been the Sikhs for Justice.
...headquartered in Canada...
This proscribed outfit has a strong presence online and has been able to radicalise several persons to fight against the government of India.
In November a team of the National Investigation Agency reached Canada on to probe the funding routes for pro-Khalistan groups which have been instrumental in creating unrest in India. The NIA team also discussed with Canadian authorities the findings of the probe against terror groups such as the Babbar Khalsa International, Khalistan Zindabad Force, Sikhs for Justice and Khalistan Tiger Force.
Last year the NIA widened the ambit of its probe in connection with the Sikhs for Justice (SJF). Sources tell OneIndia that there have been a lot of funds that have been channelised in the past couple of months. Over USD 1 lakh
...lakh translates as 100,000...
has been collected in the name of the farmer protests, the official cited above said.
The source further added that the agencies are looking into the source of funding. While there is no harm in collecting funds in the name of the protests, the NIA is looking to find if money is being collected in the name of the protests, but is being diverted to fund separatist activities of the SJF.
The probe was ordered after the SJF, a proscribed organization arranged protests in front of Indian missions abroad. After the financial trail was found the ambit of the probe was widened.
The probe was handed over the NIA after the foreign nations where the protests were organised did not take action. The NIA after a recent amendment has foreign jurisdiction and hence was handed over the probe. Investigations have found that funds have been coming in from Canada, US and UK. The official cited above said that this money is being collected by the SJF in the name of the protests. However not all is going towards the protests. A good part of it is being diverted towards subversive and propaganda activities of the SJF.
#1
Actually I wouldn't mind Pakistan being dismembered to form a Pastun-i-stans, a Balouch-i-stan and Greater Punjab. Leaving a small postage stamp asylum of virulent idiocy...
[Yahoo] A court in Virginia has denied bail to Kansas-based woman Allison Fluke-Ekren,
...mother of five, wife of three jihadis — sequentially, they kept getting killed, first the sniper, then the Bangladeshi drone expert, then the failed defender of Raqqa—teacher, home schooler, fluent in Arabic, Turkish, and Spanish...
who faces terrorism charges for allegedly heading an Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... battalion of women.
The 42-year-old American woman is now facing up to 40 years in prison.
According to the US department of justice, Fluke-Ekren, a United States citizen, "organised and led an all-female military battalion on behalf of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)".
She has also been charged with "providing and conspiring to provide material support to ISIS, a designated foreign terrorist organization."
A criminal complaint filed against her showed that she went by multiple alias names such as "Allison Elizabeth Brooks",
...her maiden name...
"Allison Ekren",
...her first second married name...
"Umm Mohammed al-Amriki", "Umm Mohammed" and aka "Umm Jabri".
Allison Fluke-Ekren, 42, a school teacher who grew up on a farm in Kansas, made a brief appearance in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, on Thursday facing terrorism charges.
Fluke-Ekren, who was dressed in a black headscarf and a green T-shirt reading "Alexandria Inmate," was ordered to be held in detention until trial.
The trajectory of the midwestern woman who was born Allison Brooks and came to be known by the nom de guerre Umm Mohammed al-Amriki has been outlined in court documents, her personal blog and newspaper articles.
Brooks grew up in Topeka, Kansas, and was remembered by one of her former teachers as a bright student who was "good at everything."
"Never would any of us who knew her back then ever thought she would end up as she has today," Larry Miller, a retired science teacher, told the Topeka Capital-Journal. "That's not the person I knew when I knew her."
Miller served as the wedding photographer for Brooks' marriage in a Methodist church to a local man named Fluke.
First we’ve heard of him. All the rest have to move up a number.
They had two children who are now adults and who have told prosecutors they do not want any contact with their mother.
Can’t blame them. The woman chose evil.
Brooks went on to marry a man named Volkan Ekren with whom she had at least three more children.
Now known as Fluke-Ekren, she studied at the University of Kansas and then earned a master's degree in teaching from a college in Indiana.
In a 2004 article in the Lawrence Journal-World, Fluke-Ekren is shown wearing a headscarf while home-schooling her two eldest children. Their studies included learning Arabic from a tutor three days a week.
Fluke-Ekren and her husband moved to Egypt in 2008. Her personal blog still available online shows pictures of the family celebrating birthdays, taking a cruise on the Nile and visiting the Pyramids.
The family moved to Libya in 2011 and lived there for a year, according to the criminal complaint against her.
A former friend identified only as Farouk told ABC News she believed Fluke-Ekren became radicalized while living in the Middle East.
"She was very sympathetic toward the Islamic states, and how they were doing the right thing and how we needed to, you know, support the women and children," Farouk said. "She really felt people were being harmed by a larger force."
She was wearing a hijab in the 2004 article — she went abroad because she had already put her feet on that path. The question is whether she left the Fluke kids behind or if they escaped later.
[BenarNews] An Indonesian charity sanctioned by the United States this week for alleged terrorism financing is rejecting accusations that it had provided funds to snuffies in Syria under the guise of humanitarian aid.
World Human Care (WHC) has no ties to terrorism and involves itself strictly in humanitarian work in Syria to help child-victims of war, said Luki Abdul Hayyi, secretary general of the NGO.
"[W]e have never funded terrorists. Indeed, we have sent volunteers to Syria, but for humanitarian missions, not for jihad or military training," he told BenarNews on Friday.
Continued on Page 49
[IsraelTimes] Ahead of possible make-or-break meetings, State Department says move ’also designed to serve US nonproliferation and nuclear safety interests and constrain’ Tehran’s nuclear work
The Biden administration (aka the Wilmington comorra) ...the pack of self-imagined masterminds of strategy and intrigue at the service of the Biden Crime Family and a grateful nation... on Friday restored some sanctions relief to Iran’s atomic program as talks aimed at salvaging the languishing 2015 nuclear deal enter a critical phase.
As US negotiators head back to Vienna for what could be a make-or-break session, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed several sanctions waivers related to Iran’s civilian nuclear activities. The move reverses the Trump administration’s decision to rescind them.
The waivers are intended to entice Iran ...Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979... to return to compliance with the 2015 deal that it has been violating since former president Donald Trump ...The tack in the backside of the Democratic Party... withdrew from the agreement in 2018 and re-imposed US sanctions. Iran says it is not respecting the terms of the deal because the US pulled out of it first. Iran has demanded the restoration of all sanctions relief it was promised under the deal to return to compliance.
Friday’s move lifts the sanctions threat against foreign countries and companies from Russia, China and Europa ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... that had been cooperating with non-military parts of Iran’s nuclear program under the terms of the 2015 deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.
The Trump administration had ended the so-called "civ-nuke" waivers in May 2020 as part of its "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran that began when Trump withdrew the US from the deal in 2018, complaining that it was the worst diplomatic agreement ever negotiated and gave Iran a pathway to developing the bomb.
As a presidential candidate, Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. You're a lyin' dog-faced pony soldier. Of course Corn Pop is a real person.... made a US return to the nuclear deal a priority, and his administration has pursued that goal but there has been little progress toward that end since he took office a year ago. Administration officials said the waivers were being restored to help push the Vienna negotiations forward.
"The waiver with respect to these activities is designed to facilitate discussions that would help to close a deal on a mutual return to full implementation of the JCPOA and lay the groundwork for Iran’s return to performance of its JCPOA commitments," the State Department said in a notice to Congress that announced the move.
"It is also designed to serve US nonproliferation and nuclear safety interests and constrain Iran’s nuclear activities," the department said. "It is being issued as a matter of policy discretion with these objectives in mind, and not pursuant to a commitment or as part of a quid pro quo. We are focused on working with partners and allies to counter the full range of threats that Iran poses."
A copy of the State Department notice and the actual waivers signed by Blinken were obtained by The News Agency that Dare Not be Named.
The waivers permit foreign countries and companies to work on civilian projects at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power station, its Arak heavy water plant and the Tehran Research Reactor. Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo had revoked the waivers in May, 2020, accusing Iran of "nuclear extortion" for continuing and expanding work at the sites.
Critics of the nuclear deal who lobbied Trump to withdraw from it protested, arguing that even if the Biden administration wants to return to the 2015 deal it should at least demand some concessions from Iran before up front granting it sanctions relief.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...the collection of boodlers, grifters, hangers-on, and self-proclaimed 
...Arabic for 
...Arabic for 
[OneIndia] The anti-India sentiment from Canada is a well known fact. Pro-
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
...Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979...
