Heroin is driving a sinister trend in Afghanistan
As opium production has grown, the Taliban has assumed a bigger role in it, deriving much of its income from the drug trade
Monday, October 30, 2017
Afghanistan has long been one of the world's biggest producers of opium and the Taliban has made a lucrative business from taxing and providing security to producers and smugglers in the region. The militant group has expanded its role in that drug trade considerably, boosting its profits at a time when it is making decisive gains against the Afghan government and its US backers. The Taliban has gotten involved in every stage of the drug business. Afghan police and their US advisers find heroin-refining labs with increasingly frequency, but the labs are easy to replace. Rather than getting smuggled out of Afghanistan in the form of opium syrup, at least half of the crop is getting processed domestically, before leaving the country as morphine or heroin.
