Afghanistan: Inside the Taliban's War on Drugs - BBC News

Jun 6, 2023 | Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders have been more successful in cracking down on opium than anyone ever has, a BBC investigation has found. The BBC has travelled to major poppy growing areas and had exclusive access to remote provinces where our journalists have seen that farmers have either not grown opium poppy complying with the Taliban’s ban, or they’ve had their poppy crops destroyed if they defied the order. This is backed by research from UK based experts who have analysed satellite images and said the drop in opium cultivation is likely to be as much as 80%. The crackdown has big global ramifications, with most of the world’s opium coming from Afghanistan.

Documentary: Addicted to Pleasure - Opium

Brian Cox learns the origins and history of modern-day opium addiction. ¶ Actor Brian Cox reveals the rich and controversial past of sugar, alcohol, tobacco and opium to uncover how the commercial exploitation of these products hooked the world.

Opium: Drogenkonsum in Afghanistan steigt rasant
ZEIT ONLINE: Innerhalb von fünf Jahren verdoppelte sich die Zahl der Heroin-Konsumenten. Auch der Gebrauch von Opium nimmt am Hindukusch rasant zu.

In Afghanistan wird mehr Opium gewonnen als in jedem anderen Land der Welt. Offenbar ist das produzierte Rauschgift aber nicht nur für den Export bestimmt: Wie aus einer in Kabul vorgestellten UN-Studie hervorgeht, ist der Drogenkonsum unter den Afghanen stark angestiegen. Demnach wuchs in den vergangenen fünf Jahren die Zahl der Opium-Konsumenten um 53 Prozent auf 230.000. Die Zahl der Heroin-Konsumenten nahm auf 120.000 zu, das ist mehr als doppelt so viel wie vor fünf Jahren. >>> Zeit Online, AFP | Montag, 21. Juni 2010

Rageh Omaar on Why the West Should Fear the Taliban and al-Qaeda's Hold on Pakistan
THE TELEGRAPH: Stronghold of both the Taliban and al-Qaeda, the wild and lawless tribal border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan forms the crucial battleground in the war on terror. Rageh Omaar reports from the front line.

Supporters of Pro-Taliban cleric Sufi Muhammad march in Swat's main city of Mingora, Photo (AP) courtesy of The Telegraph
”Over the past two years, I have noticed that there is such a hatred of anything to do with the West throughout much of the tribal areas that the region has changed dramatically…

…Pakistan represents the first realistic prospect for a jihadist movement to capture a nation-state, or at the very least to control large parts of it. It would, in effect, mean that militants would have something approaching a mini-state within the country where the central government's power and influence would be non-existent, and from which they could plan and launch attacks beyond its borders. And Pakistan is not just any nation-state at threat from militant groups, but one that has nuclear weapons, a large population and economic resources; one that borders a vulnerable failed state in Afghanistan where tens of thousands of Nato forces are stationed; and one that also has as its neighbours two emerging economic superpowers, China and India. What is more, Pakistan has a long coastline open to the most economically important stretch of waterway in the world, the Gulf, from which hundreds of tankers supply oil-hungry economies. It is a nightmare scenario from which no country is immune. None of us will escape the consequences of a situation where large parts of Pakistan are politically, militarily and economically controlled by jihadists." – Rageh Omaar

The stark mountainous northern regions of Pakistan's tribal areas are among the most beautiful landscapes in the world. Yet as Barack Obama's newly appointed special envoy to the region, the famously tough and straight-talking diplomat Richard Holbrooke, has said, Pakistan is the country that scares President Obama and keeps him awake at night more than any other.

On my assignments to Pakistan in the past two years, it has been hard to believe the country's nightmare could get any worse. It has been heartbreaking to see this nation of more than 170 million people convulsed by political violence that its government seems increasingly incapable of halting. From the assassination of Benazir Bhutto to the almost weekly suicide bomb attacks that go unnoticed by the outside world, every strike by the militants is more audacious than the previous one.

The ambush of the Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore at the beginning of this month came at the same time that the four main Taliban groups in Pakistan announced their decision to unite their forces in a concerted military campaign against Nato and government forces in neighbouring Afghanistan. Cricket, as many have observed, is one of the few cultural and sporting pastimes in which all Pakistanis, regardless of class, regional, ethnic or sectarian traditions, can unite around. It is a sport that both the religiously conservative and the Westernised elite enjoy. The aim of the militant attack on Lahore was to undermine this; to make the point that nothing is immune from political violence and that the Taliban's vision for Pakistan is an absolutist one with no room for anything Western, or anything that isn't derived from their literal interpretation of Islam.

More and more of Pakistan is slipping beyond the control of the government. As the Lahore attack showed, even the centres of major cities are vulnerable. Nowhere is the absence of the rule of law more evident than the north-west of Pakistan. The region is officially known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a clunky but accurate description of this vast expanse of nearly 11,000 square miles, home to an estimated seven million people whose first loyalty is not to Pakistan but to their tribal community. As its name indicates, this region is nominally administered by the Pakistani government but it has been autonomous and unconquered for centuries. >>> By Rageh Omaar | Thursday, March 19, 2009

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