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Taliban are involved in all facets, from poppy planting, opium extraction, trafficking to charging smugglers export fees.

The United States spent more than $8bn over 15 years on efforts to deprive the Taliban of their profits from Afghanistan’s opium and heroin trade, from poppy eradication to air attacks and raids on suspected labs.

That strategy failed.

As the US wraps up its longest war, Afghanistan remains the world’s biggest illicit opiate supplier and looks certain to remain so as the Taliban is on the brink of taking power in Kabul, said current and former US and UN officials and experts.

Widespread destruction during the war, millions uprooted from their homes, foreign aid cuts, and losses of local spending by departed US-led foreign troops are fuelling an economic and humanitarian crisis that is likely to leave many destitute Afghans dependent on the narcotics trade for survival.

That dependence threatens to bring more instability as the Taliban, other armed groups, ethnic militia leaders, and corrupt public officials vie for drug profits and power.

Some UN and US officials worry Afghanistan’s slide into chaos is creating conditions for even higher illicit opiate production, a potential boon to the Taliban.

“The Taliban have counted on the Afghan opium trade as one of their main sources of income,” Cesar Gudes, the head of the Kabul office of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), told Reuters. “More production brings drugs with a cheaper and more attractive price, and therefore a wider accessibility.”

With the Taliban entering Kabul on Sunday, “these are the best moments in which these illicit groups tend to position themselves” to expand their business, Gudes said.

The Taliban banned poppy growing in 2000 as they sought international legitimacy, but faced a popular backlash and later mostly changed their stance, according to experts.

Despite the threats posed by Afghanistan’s illicit drug business, experts noted, the US and other nations rarely mention in public the need to address the trade – estimated by the UNODC at more than 80 percent of global opium and heroin supplies.

“We’ve stood by on the sidelines and, unfortunately, allowed the Taliban to become probably the largest funded non-designated terrorist organisation on the globe,” said a US official with knowledge of Afghanistan’s drug trade.

“The US and international partners have continued to pull out and not addressed poppy cultivation,” the official said on condition of anonymity. “What you’re going to find is that it has exploded.”

Asked for comment, a State Department official said the US would continue to support the Afghan people, “including our ongoing counternarcotics efforts”, but declined to say how aid would continue should US assistance stop if the Taliban seize power.

Poppy cultivation soars

Afghan farmers weigh a range of factors to decide how much poppy to plant 

Afghan farmers weigh myriad factors in deciding how much poppy to plant. These range from annual precipitation and the price of wheat, the main alternative crop to poppy, to world opium and heroin prices.

Yet even during droughts and wheat shortages, when wheat prices rocket, Afghan farmers have grown poppy and extracted opium gum that is refined into morphine and heroin. In recent years, many have installed Chinese-made solar panels to power deep water wells.

Three of the last four years have seen some of Afghanistan’s highest levels of opium production, according to the UNODC. Even as the COVID-19 pandemic raged, poppy cultivation soared 37 percent last year, it reported in May.

Illicit narcotics are “the country’s largest industry except for war,” said Barnett Rubin, a former US Department of State adviser on Afghanistan.

The estimated all-time high for opium production was set in 2017 at 9,900 tonnes worth some $1.4bn in sales by farmers or roughly 7 percent of Afghanistan’s GDP, the UNODC reported.

When the value of drugs for export and local consumption is taken into account, along with imported precursor chemicals, the UNODC estimated the country’s overall illicit opiate economy that year at as much as $6.6bn.

Taliban’s role

The Taliban and public officials have long been involved in the narcotics trade, experts said, although some dispute the extent of the Taliban’s role and profits.

The UN and Washington contend that the Taliban are involved in all facets, from poppy planting, opium extraction, and trafficking to exacting “taxes” from cultivators and drug labs to charging smugglers fees for shipments bound for Africa, Europe, Canada, Russia, the Middle East, and other parts of Asia.

Some of those shipments are hurled across the heavily patrolled border to traffickers in Iran with rudimentary catapults, reported David Mansfield, a leading researcher into Afghanistan’s illicit drug trade.

The Taliban levy fees on smugglers for shipments sent abroad

UN officials reported that the Taliban likely earned more than $400m between 2018 and 2019 from the drug trade. A May 2021 US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR) report quoted a US official as estimating they derive up to 60 percent of their annual revenue from illicit narcotics.

Some experts dispute that data.

Mansfield says his field studies show the most the Taliban can earn from illicit opiates is about $40m annually, predominantly from levies on opium production, heroin labs and drug shipments.

The fighters, he said, make more money exacting fees on legal imports and exports at roadside checkpoints.

Failed efforts

Washington spent an estimated $8.6bn between 2002 and 2017 to throttle Afghanistan’s drug trade in order to deny the Taliban funds, according to a 2018 SIGAR report. Apart from poppy eradication, the US and allies backed interdiction raids and alternative crop programmes, air raids on suspected heroin labs and other measures.

Those efforts “didn’t really have much success”, retired US Army General Joseph Votel, who headed US Central Command from 2016 to 2019, told Reuters.

Instead, experts say, they stoked anger against the government in Kabul and its foreign backers – and sympathy for the Taliban – among farmers and labourers who depend on opium production to feed their families.

The Taliban learned that lesson from their ban on poppy growing in 2000, said Brookings Institution scholar Vanda Felbab-Brown.

Despite a steep decline in production, the ban ignited “a huge political storm against the Taliban and it was one reason why there were such dramatic defections after the US invasion,” she said.

Therefore, experts said, it is unlikely the Taliban will prohibit poppy cultivation should they gain power.

“A future government,” said Mansfield, “will need to tread carefully to avoid alienating its rural constituency and provoking resistance and violent rebellion.”

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Israel’s War On Gaza: List of Key Events, Day 101

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3 years ago

on

15th January 2024

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Israel's war on Gaza: List of key events, day 101 | Israel War on Gaza News | Al Jazeera

Dozens of Palestinians killed in overnight Israeli strikes in central and south Gaza as Red Sea tensions rise.

Here’s how things stand on Monday, January 15, 2024:

Latest updates and human impact

  • Israeli attacks continue unabated overnight killing and wounding dozens of civilians in central and southern Gaza. At least 22 people were killed and a large number injured as a result of Israeli forces targeting al-Thalatheni Street in the central Gaza Strip.
  • Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired an antiship cruise missile toward an American destroyer in the Red Sea, which was shot down by a US fighter jet, announced US Central Command (CENTCOM) on X.
  • This was the first US-acknowledged Houthi attack since the US strikes on Yemen on Friday.
  • Hamas released a 37-second video showing three Israeli captives held in Gaza on Sunday, saying they would reveal the fate of the captives on Monday and urging the Israeli government to stop the offensive.
  • The Israeli military says it has shifted to a new phase of the war focused on the southern end of Gaza, where almost 2 million internally displaced Palestinians are running out of safe spaces to shelter.
  • The Gaza Ministry of Health has said almost 24,000 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive. More than 60,000 people have been wounded in 100 days of war.

Diplomacy

  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that his country will pursue its war against Hamas until victory and will not be stopped by anyone, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
  • The White House said on Sunday that “it’s the right time” for Israel to scale back its military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
  • Egypt’s State Information Service (SIS) said in a statement on Sunday that one of the biggest obstacles to the timely delivery of sufficient aid to Gaza was Israeli inspection of the aid. The statement came after Israel blamed Cairo for the delay in aid delivery to Gaza during its defence at the ICJ.
  • US Secretary of State Antony Blinken posted on X on Monday, calling for the release of the remaining captives held in Gaza on the 100th day since they were taken by Hamas. He did not mention the Palestinian casualties.
  • Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who described herself as a “friend of Israel” to the press, will travel to Jordan, Israel, the occupied Palestinian Territories and the United Arab Emirates this week, her office said on Monday.

West Bank raids and violence

  • Israeli forces arrested 25 students staging a sit-in in protest against high tuition fees at An-Najah University in Nablus. Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut reported that the protesting students received a text message from Israeli forces telling them to “surrender now”.
  • Israeli forces have reportedly raided the family home of Nael al-Barghouti, the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner, in the village of Kobar, in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.
  • The Israeli army said on Friday that it killed three Palestinian men who infiltrated a West Bank settlement and fired upon soldiers.
  • The Israeli military killed two Palestinians after accusing them of ramming their car through a checkpoint near Hebron.
  • Local sources reported that Israeli forces bulldozed two Palestinian-owned houses during a Sunday midnight raid in the city of Qalqilya, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
  • Armed Israeli settlers broke into the village of Burin, south of Nablus, and attacked Palestinian residents’ houses and properties after midnight on Sunday, Wafa reported.
  • “Violent raids and arrests have become part of the fabric of daily life in the occupied West Bank,” Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, said. At least 347 Palestinians have been killed and thousands have been arrested since October 7.

 

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
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Hamas Says Will Kill Hostages if Israeli Attacks On Gaza Civilians Continue

Published

3 years ago

on

10th October 2023

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Flames and smoke billow during Israeli attacks against Gaza on October 9, 2023

Human Rights Watch terms Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s call for a ‘complete siege’ on Gaza a ‘war crime’.

The Hamas movement has threatened to kill an Israeli hostage every time Israel bombs a Palestinian home without warning as Israel mobilised some 300,000 reservists and imposed a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, denying the enclave’s millions of residents access to food, water and fuel.

The warning from Hamas came on Monday as the death toll from the armed group’s surprise weekend attack climbed to 900 in Israel and revenge attacks by Israeli forces on the besieged Gaza Strip killed more than 700 people and left some 3,700 others wounded.

Residential apartment blocks, hospitals, schools and a mosque have been among the sites attacked by Israeli fighter jets, artillery and drones, according to media reports and witnesses.

Hamas spokesperson Abu Ubaida issued the threat to kill Israelis from the dozens held captive by the armed group. He said an Israeli hostage would be killed for every Israeli bombing of a civilian house without warning.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said more than 100 people were taken captive by Hamas during the deadly cross-border incursion over the weekend.

As Israeli forces conducted intense retaliatory attacks on Gaza on Monday, Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant drew international condemnation by announcing a total blockade of the densely populated and besieged enclave, which is home to 2.3 million people.

Gallant said Israel would impose a “complete siege” on Gaza. “No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed.”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply distressed” by the siege announcement and warned that Gaza’s already dire humanitarian situation will now “only deteriorate exponentially”.

A mourner carries the body of Palestinian boy Saad Lubbad, who health officials said was killed in Israeli strikes, during his funeral in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, October 9, 2023. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
A mourner carries the body of Palestinian boy Saad Lubbad, who health officials said was killed in an Israeli attack, during his funeral in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on October 9, 2023 [Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters]

Guterres also said some 137,000 people were taking shelter with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) at schools across Gaza.

UNRWA said on Tuesday that almost 190,000 people have been displaced in Gaza amid the Israeli attacks and the figure is expected to grow further as the violence intensifies.

Nearly half a million people have also not received food rations this week in Gaza as UN food distribution centres have been forced to remain closed amid the Israeli onslaught, UNRWA said.

Human Rights Watch said Israel’s total blockade on the necessities of life for everyday people in Gaza was a war crime.

“Defense Minister Gallant’s statements are abhorrent,” Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

“Depriving the population in an occupied territory of food and electricity is collective punishment, which is a war crime, as is using starvation as a weapon of war. The International Criminal Court should take note of this call to commit a war crime,” he said.

Shakir also condemned the threat by Hamas to kill hostages, warning that such action was also a war crime.

“All hostages should be safely released to their families,” he said.

On the diplomatic front, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Hamas and Israel to immediately end violence and protect civilians, the Egyptian presidency said.

Erdogan urged Israel against “indiscriminately” attacking civilians and delivered measured criticism of Hamas, urging both sides to respect the “ethics” of war.

The United Kingdom, French, German, Italian and US governments issued a joint statement on Monday recognising the “legitimate aspirations” of the Palestinian people and supporting equal measures of justice and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

INTERACTIVE_DEATH_TOLL_INJURED_ISRAEL_PALESTINE_OCT10_2023_0415
They said they would remain “united and coordinated” to ensure Israel can defend itself.

But the prospect that fighting could spread also alarmed the region and the world.

Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel in response to at least three of its members being killed in Israeli shelling of Lebanon.

Israel said one of its deputy commanders was also killed in an earlier cross-border raid from Lebanon.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

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Western Leaders Accused of Hypocrisy Over Response To Palestine, Ukraine

Published

3 years ago

on

10th October 2023

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US President Joe Biden holds a bilateral meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York City, the US, September 20, 2023

Social media users, including journalists and observers, are calling out what they call a ‘double standard’.

After Saturday’s surprise attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Israel, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took to the social media platform X to offer “condolences go out to everyone who lost relatives or close ones in the terrorist attack”.

He also stated, “Israel’s right to self-defence is unquestionable.”

Many world leaders, including US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, shared similar sentiments.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated, “Israel has the right to defend itself – today and in the days to come. The European Union stands with Israel.”

Accusations of Western ‘double standards’

Some social media users have criticised these statements, saying they highlight a double standard.

Ukraine’s right to defend itself is praised by most international leaders while Russia’s invasion is condemned, but commentators said the same cannot be said about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Aaron Bastani, a leftist British journalist, said on X that there’s a “clear double standard in endorsing terrorism against civilian targets in Ukraine … and condemning it by Palestinians”.

Many users said Western diplomats and media support the Ukrainians who defend their land, but label the Palestinians fighting against Israel as “terrorists”.

https://twitter.com/KhaledBeydoun/status/1710787817415082349?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710787817415082349%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

An illustration of a woman’s face, in which one eye is closed beside a Palestinian flag, and one eye open beside a Ukrainian flag, has been regularly shared as a symbol of the West’s alleged double standards in how the two conflicts are viewed.

https://twitter.com/OnlinePalEng/status/1710994682883273172?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710994682883273172%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

Clips also emerged on social media from a CNN interview with Mustafa Barghouti, the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, in which he posed the rhetorical question, “Why does the United States support Ukraine in fighting occupation – while here they support the occupier, who continues to occupy us?”

It is not the first time Western nations have been accused of double standards in their stance on the Ukraine war.

Earlier in the year, Amnesty International published a report highlighting the West’s “double standards” on global human rights.

Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general, told Al Jazeera at the time that the occupation of Palestinian territory was a “particularly important one”.

“Without making any comparison between Russia’s aggression and Israel … it is clear the Palestinian people are under a regime of oppression – a regime of occupation and a regime of apartheid,” Callamard told Al Jazeera.

Over the last three days, X users recirculated earlier statements calling out what they called Western hypocrisy, sharing video by the Irish lawmaker Richard Boyd Barrett from March 2022 in which he berated the Irish government’s double standards regarding Ukraine and Palestine:

“You’re happy to use the most strong and robust language to describe the crimes against humanity of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin, but you will not use the same strength of language when it comes to describing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.”

Barrett on Sunday again called out what he described as “shocking double standards of Western leaders supporting Ukraine resistance but condemning Palestinian[s].”

Meanwhile, others warned against comparing conflicts.

https://twitter.com/denfordauthor/status/1710993737738768607?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710993737738768607%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

And some cautioned that Hamas and the Palestinians should not be seen as one and the same.

Ukrainian footballer Oleksandr Zinchenko, who plays for Arsenal, posted on Instagram, stating he “stands with Israel”.

Zinchenko has been a vocal supporter of his home country in its ongoing defence against Russia, and he participated in a Game4Ukraine charity match in London earlier this year to raise money for Ukraine.

After online backlash, with some questioning an alleged double standard in his support of Israel, the footballer removed the post and switched his social media account to private.

Several people claimed that Zinchenko’s football club, in not responding to his comments, was guilty of hypocrisy after they had distanced themselves from former player Mesut Ozil’s comments in 2019 over alleged human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims in China.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
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