Gretchen Peters Examines Afghan Drug Trade

Seeds Of Terror, How Heroin is Bankrolling the Taliban and Al Qaeda

Jun 26, 2009

Fighting terrorism will require going after the drug traffickers in Afghanistan and Pakistan. So far very little has been done to interrupt the flow of money to Al Qaeda.

In 2007, Afghanistan supplied more than 90% of the world's opium poppy, the raw material for heroin. The U.N. estimates the Afghan insurgency makes between $300 and $400 million a year from the drug trade. Author and former ABC news reporter Gretchen Peters, who has covered Afghanistan and Pakistan for more than a decade, just published an extensive book about the connections between the drug trade and the Afghan insurgency. She is convinced that the nexus of heroin smugglers and extremists presents a critical security threat.

Combating the Terrorists Will Require Going After The Drug Traffickers

Peters used local reporters to survey people connected to the drug trade along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Eighty-one percent of respondents said Taliban commanders' first priority was to make money, rather than to recapture territory and impose their strict brand of Islam (SoT ,13). Peters' research shows that drug money pays for the majority of the Taliban's expenses. So every time a U.S. soldier is killed in an IED attack or by a roadside bomb, drug money helped pay for the explosives.

It is a misconception in the West that the Taliban eradicated poppy farming. In 2000 Taliban leader Mullah Omar did announce a total ban of poppy cultivation. The ban, as it turned out later, was the ultimate insider trading con. As soon as the poppy ban was announced the price of opium skyrocketed. The Taliban raked in $250 million in "alternative livelihood aid" from the U.N.'s drug control program, who had brokered the deal, while top traders could sell their opium stockpiles at much better prices.

The lack of U.S. oversight into drug smuggling by the mujahideen (U.S. supported "freedom fighters" against the Soviets in the 1980s) set up the preconditions for the complete integration of narcotics — and reliance on drug money — into the politics of Afghanistan and Pakistan. (SoT, 49)

The Protection Trade and the "Hawala" System

The Taliban in Southern Afghanistan tax the drug trade. They tax the farmers and the convoys leaving the areas, and the drug labs along the border. They earn money by providing protection. Al Qaeda and other extremists groups help moving shipments in and out of Afghanistan. Most money transfers in Afghanistan and Pakistan don't pass through banks but through the informal hawala system. This money moving network (it's"like the subcontinent's answer to Western Union, basically", Peters on the PBS NewsHour) needs to be regulated. It is crucial to track flows of money, separating the good from the bad.

Target Criminals Not Afghan Farmers

Spraying the poppy fields is the wrong answer, since it would just drive up opium prices and put more money into the pockets of drug dealers and terrorists. Gretchen Peters insists on targeting the "bad guys" instead of debt-ridden Afghan farmers. A successful strategy would blend intelligence and law enforcement efforts and include military strikes against drug labs. It is no secret that people in the Karzai government and in Pakistan's government are facilitators of the drug trade. This is why U.S. officials and NATO commanders have been reluctant to go after the traffickers.

Aid Programs for Farmers

Public-relations campaigns and the creation of farm support networks must be part of the peace-building strategy. U.S. funds earmarked for poppy eradication could be better spent on alternative-livelihood programs and efforts to build Afghanistan's law enforcement capabilities. Prosperity and stability for the region will remain elusive as long as its foundation is the criminal opium economy. Fixing Afghanistan will be a long and slow process. Since the Bush administration failed to complete the job in 2001, defeating the insurgency and the drug trade might now take decades.

"Seeds of Terror" reads like a thriller and is disturbing, as it shows that the U.S. and its allies are culpable for Afghanistan's instability. "The biggest tragedy of where we are today, " says an UN official with years of experience in Afghanistan, "is that this was all so ****ing avoidable." (SoT,24)

Peters, Gretchen: Seeds of Terror: How Heroin is Bankrolling the Taliban and Al Qaeda. New York, 2009.

The copyright of the article Gretchen Peters Examines Afghan Drug Trade in War & Poverty is owned by Christine Welter. Permission to republish Gretchen Peters Examines Afghan Drug Trade in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.