thenews | Terrorism, drugs-for-arms and money laundering are intrinsically
linked and pose a considerable threat to global peace and security. They
destabilise the political and financial stability of many
nation-states. They were accelerated in the wake of 9/11. Militants and
extremists have a nexus with criminal networks involved in dealing drugs
and arms.
Evidence available with intelligence agencies confirms that from
Al-Qaeda to Daesh the real challenge involves the free flow of legal and
illegal funds. Until today, the international community has failed to
sever their financial lifeline.
It is an open secret how the drug trade in post-Taliban Afghanistan
was institutionalised through the puppet regime in Kabul and the
patronising attitude of war lords in many provinces of the country. Once
opium started being processed at a mass scale into morphine and heroin
in Afghanistan, it brought tonnes of money for commanders on the ground.
Since 2004, the controlled democracy in Afghanistan has been playing
into the hands of more sophisticated narco-enriched commanders. It is no
longer a secret that the Taliban – with whom the US and its allies have
always been in negotiation since 2004 – knew how to buy or muscle a
vote which would protect their opium interests in every election.
Even Afghanistan’s neighbours have been making profits from the
windfall: criminal groups from Central Asia, says the UN, have made
profits worth $15.2 billion from the trafficking of opiates in 2015.
Tajikistan is, by far, the worst affected by the drug plague owing to a
combination of history, poverty and geography.
In the late 1990s, the drug trade was believed to be a source of
finance for the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) – a terrorist group
which had bases in Afghanistan and Tajikistan. After the war in
Afghanistan, the IMU lost most of its influence. But the drugs trade
continued with organised criminals taking the place of political or
religious activists. In a survey conducted by the Open Society
Institute, eight out of 10 of those polled said – hardly surprisingly –
that “the main reason to turn to drug trafficking was to make big
money”.
