8am: Amirabbas Lotfi, the spokesperson for the Iranian Anti-Drug Headquarters, made this announcement on Tuesday, November 28, in response to a recent United Nations report on the reduction of opium cultivation in Afghanistan, according to an ISNA report. Lotfi stated, “The income of Afghan farmers from opium cultivation in the past Gregorian year has suddenly
8am: This former parliament member adds that the Taliban, their families, and supporters are currently cultivating opium in large hidden compounds, each containing multiple acres of land, in remote regions in the southwest of the country, keeping it out of the public eye. He mentions that the leadership of this group is involved in the
AP: Afghanistan is the world’s fastest-growing maker of methamphetamine, a report from the United Nations drug agency said Sunday. The country is also a major opium producer and heroin source, even though the Taliban declared a war on narcotics after they returned to power in August 2021. Click here to read more (external link).
8am: In a recent incident, Taliban fighters carried out a violent attack in Ghor Province, brutally assaulting several residents and setting their motorcycles ablaze, as reported by local sources. One local resident, who wished to remain anonymous, revealed that the Taliban fighters had been personally gathering yam plants from the mountains and profiting from their
The Diplomat: The humongous trade is run by regional and multinational cartels with complex and elaborate illicit networks across the region. Politicians, security force personnel, and even the Taliban have been part of this symbiotic nexus, profiteering enormous amounts of money. Amid the anti-poppy measures of the Taliban, a record amount of Afghan drugs moved
WP: One year on, it’s not clear whether the Taliban will soon make a significant dent on a crop that the United Nations estimated accounts for one-tenth of the entire Afghan economy. The country’s poppy farmers supply the raw ingredients that, after being boiled into bricks, refined and exported to Europe via Iran and Pakistan,
Global Initiative: Having long hosted Western Asia’s largest methamphetamine market, Iran for decades has employed an aggressive multi-million-dollar campaign to curb the trade. The discovery, however, of the ephedra plant in neighbouring Afghanistan – a source of ephedrine, a key ingredient for the drug – threatens to undermine Tehran’s efforts. The abundance of cheap meth
Khaama: The US Special Envoy for Afghanistan, Thomas West, tweeted that the recent reports on a significant drop in poppy production in the country are “credible and important.” But since the Taliban seized power, Afghanistan’s economy has collapsed, and the population is now facing a severe humanitarian catastrophe. Experts claim that as a result, one
Khaama: Several related economic activities are involved in Afghanistan drug trafficking. Cartels maintain a symbiotic relationship with the Taliban by giving farmers advances to plant ephedra and opium while providing the financial assistance necessary to keep the jihadist proto-state alive. These cartels use Pakistani sources to facilitate the acquisition of chemicals required to produce drugs.
Farmers in southern Afghanistan say they are dismayed at the destruction of their poppy farms by the Taliban government since it assumed control of Afghanistan in 2021. Once a lucrative crop, farmers made a fortune under the former government backed by the West, but the Taliban enforced a strict ban in 2023 to avoid