8am: Civil activists in Samangan province voice their deep concerns over the selling of drugs by young boys in the province who are being employed to do so by the criminal gangs. Samiullah Samangani, a civil activist for the province, told Hasht-e Subh on Saturday that the selling drugs by criminal gangs have increased in
8am: Sources report the killing of two drug addicts by the Taliban in Joy Shir area of Kabul city. On Wednesday, sources said that Taliban fighters first beat up two addicts and then one of the Taliban fighters hit one of the addicts with a knife and when the addict ran away, the Taliban fighter
AP: Hundreds of men, strung out on heroin, opium and meth, were strewn over the hillside overlooking Kabul, some in tents, some lying in the dirt. Dogs skulked around because they sometimes give them drugs, and there were bodies of overdosed dogs amid the garbage. Men here as well slip, quiet and alone, across the
AP: During the years-long Taliban insurgency, the movement reportedly made millions of dollars taxing farmers and middlemen to move their drugs outside Afghanistan. Senior officials of the U.S.-backed government also reportedly made millions on the flourishing drug trade. Today, Afghanistan’s opium output is greater than all other opium-producing countries combined. Click here to read more
8am: Vladimir Kulishov, Russian First Deputy Chief of the Federal Security Service (FSB), has said that the volume of drug trafficking from Afghanistan to Central Asian countries has doubled since 2021, specifically, after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan. According to Mr. Kulishov, last year, 3,500 tons of narcotics were seized in the Republic of
NYT: The multibillion-dollar trade has survived previous bans. Now, the Taliban are going after solar-powered water pumps to try to dry up poppy crops in the middle of a national economic crisis. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News: The Washington Post reported that Afghanistan’s “fastest-growing drug industry operates from desert outposts in plain view.” The Islamic Emirate has yet to comment in reaction to the report. The report said that the meth industry is “growing at breakneck speed, stoking fears among Western experts and officials that, under the Taliban, Afghanistan could
8am: Local sources say the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan has boosted opium markets and has encouraged poppy farmers to increase production and turn more lands into poppy cultivation fields. Click here to read more (external link).
The Independent (UK): Apart from the potentially ruinous domestic impact, the collapse of Afghanistan’s heroin trade may also usher in a new era of drug trafficking in Europe and the UK, where most Afghan-sourced heroin is consumed. Click here to read more (external link).
RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi April 14, 2022 Wali Jan, a farmer in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, is expected to soon harvest poppies from his half-hectare farm. Standing in his blooming poppy field in Garni, an impoverished village on the outskirts of the provincial capital, Tarin Kowt, Jan is upset by the Taliban’s decision this