The Growing Taliban/Drug Connection

By Michael Braun

Specially trained and equipped U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Agents assigned to Foreign-deployed Advisory and Support Teams (FAST), and specially trained officers assigned to the National Interdiction Unit (NIU) of the Counter-Narcotics Police of Afghanistan, successfully raided a number of remote heroin laboratories and hashish processing facilities in Afghanistan in the past several months. The raids were strongly supported by U.S. military and Department of State assets, which is unmistakable proof that the inter-agency ‘enforcement’ aspect of the Afghan counter-narcotics strategy is beginning to work. However, the need for a more forceful and consistent approach is just as evident.

What is most troubling, although no real surprise, is that these facilities were under the command and control of the Taliban. The best estimates by our government are that the Taliban generates somewhere between $300 - $400 million dollars a year from their involvement in the Afghan drug trade. I happen to believe that number falls woefully short of the real figure. A traffickers compound that was successfully raided over a year ago by FAST/NIU operators resulted in the seizure of evidence that clearly showed about $170 million dollars flowing through the hands of the responsible, Taliban-affiliated drug baron in just a 10 month period.

Our military, intelligence and law enforcement communities are doing magnificent work in disrupting the funding streams from very powerful, private donors, as well as from the Taliban’s state sponsors. As a result, the Taliban leadership has clearly been forced to make the same choice the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia were compelled to make about 18 years ago when their state sponsored funding stream evaporated virtually overnight—to move from simply taxing farmers, one of the most fundamental forms of extortion, to wholesale involvement in the manufacture and trafficking of drugs. The Taliban is quickly evolving into what I classify as a ‘hybrid terrorist organization’: one part designated foreign terrorist organization (by our Congress), and one part global drug trafficking cartel.

What’s the answer? The Afghan government, our military and intelligence services, as well as NATO forces on the ground in Afghanistan, have to become more aggressively involved in supporting counter-narcotics operations. I recently ran across a study dated July 12, 2002 conducted by Professor James D. Fearon of Stanford University entitled, “Why Do Some Wars Last So Much Longer Than Others?,” that sums it up pretty well. Fearon studied 128 insurgencies and civil wars over several decades and found that 17 lasted four to five times longer than the other 111, extending those 17 from the average of about 8 years as I recall, to over 40 years. What did the 17 all have in common that the others did not? The government opposition forces had access to contraband revenue—mostly drugs. The bottom line: we’re not going to be successful in Afghanistan, and will not get our troops out of the country, until the Afghan government, the United States and NATO get serious about cutting off the Taliban’s most important funding stream—the drug trade.