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The Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist group that brutally ruled Afghanistan in the late ’90s, has taken over more than half
of Afghanistan’s provincial capitals as of yesterday evening, including
the country’s second-largest city, Kandahar. Four cities fell to the
Taliban’s rule Thursday night alone.
The
Taliban’s advance comes months after President Biden announced plans to
withdraw all US troops from the country to end the US’ longest-running
war. But now, Biden’s sent 7,000 troops back to evacuate the American
embassy and US citizens.
- Afghanistan’s
capital and largest city, Kabul, is still under government control,
along with three other major Afghan cities—but one of those is currently
under siege and the rest are being closed in on.
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The Taliban now effectively controls all of southern Afghanistan,
and US officials told the NYT that the Biden administration is preparing
for the possibility of the Afghan government collapsing within the next month.
One of the many ramifications of the Taliban’s onslaught: It could pour fuel on the illegal drug market.
The “world’s biggest cartel” is getting bigger
Even insurgents need capital to fuel their ventures, and the Taliban's biggest source
of revenue is the drug trade. The organization made $416 million
trafficking opium, heroin, and increasingly meth in fiscal year 2020,
per the Conversation.
And in the Afghan countryside now under Taliban control, opium poppies are in perpetual superbloom.
Afghanistan is the world's biggest producer of opium, which most heroin
is derived from: 84% of all the world’s opium was sourced from the
country from 2015–20, per the UN’s World Drug Report.
- The
Taliban has also started peddling meth recently. And ephedra, a plant
used to make methamphetamine, grows natively in Afghanistan.
But the
Taliban didn’t just beef up its drug supply. It also took over
international crossing points to ramp up distribution, gaining access to
Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, and Pakistan. From those
countries, drugs can be shipped to the rest of the world.
Bottom line: The Taliban’s power grab likely means more heroin and meth will be pushed into the hands of dealers and users around the world.
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