Drug dollars: How Taliban’s opium push helped oust the Afghan government

Heroin, morphine, opium, hashish, poppy and many more such drugs have largely benefitted the Taliban in recent years. More than three-fourth of the opium poppy produced worldwide was from Afghanistan in the pandemic year 2020.

Illicit drug trade is a cash cow for the Taliban in Afghanistan, fuelling its sustained campaign to overthrow the incumbent government. Drug traffickers make huge donations to Taliban commanders in return for “protection” that meet the group’s weaponry and other requirements. “We have no security related problems inside Afghanistan since the Taliban provides protection. We pay cash and provide weapons to the Taliban,” said a drug trafficker interviewed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. The report cited that an Afghan drug trafficker named Abdul Sattar made an individual donation of USD 333,000 to senior Taliban commanders from drug profits.