In August 2021, the Taliban took over the presidential palace in Kabul and took power in Afghanistan. It is the conclusion of nearly twenty years of conflict which required considerable resources. Where do Afghan armed groups find so much money?
Part of the answer lies in a pretty pink flower: the sleeping poppy. It is from it that opium is produced and heroin is manufactured. Drug trafficking has grown considerably over the past 40 years in Afghanistan.
And despite eradication campaigns, US bombings and repeated droughts, in 2019 it still represented around 10% of the country’s GDP. A traffic that has largely benefited the Afghan armed groups, including the Taliban. Here’s how.
Sources :
- World Drug Reports:
2021 – Booklet 3 – Drug Market Trends: Opioids, Cannabis
2017- Booklet 5 -The Drug Problem And Organized Crime, Illicit Financial Flows, Corruption And Terrorism - Afghanistan Opium Survey: 2020, 2019, 2006
- Reports of the International Bureau of Narcotics for the UN: 1998, 1999
- Declassified CIA document, 1995, National Security Archive
- Still Water Runs Deep: Illicit Poppy and the Transformation of the Deserts of Southwest Afghanistan, Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, David Mansfield, 2018
- Map of Afghanistan with Mineralized Areas, USGS 2007
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