{"id":1266028,"date":"2022-02-02T14:54:40","date_gmt":"2022-02-02T19:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1266028"},"modified":"2022-02-02T14:55:56","modified_gmt":"2022-02-02T19:55:56","slug":"afghan-opium-production-skyrockets-under-taliban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/afghan-opium-production-skyrockets-under-taliban\/","title":{"rendered":"Afghan Opium Production Skyrockets Under Taliban"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">12<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fafghan-opium-production-skyrockets-under-taliban%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1266028&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"article-category\"><a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/national-security\/\">National Security<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"article-excerpt\">Taliban could rake in up to $2.7 billion from illicit drugs<\/p>\n<figure class=\"post-thumbnail-container relative lg:mr-24 w-full my-4 mb-8\">\n\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"736\" height=\"491\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Afghan-poppy-field-opium-736x491-1.jpeg\" class=\"w-full lazyload blur-up wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"denied:data:image\/gif;base64, R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Afghan-poppy-field-opium-scaled-e1632428981410.jpeg 736w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Afghan-poppy-field-opium-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Afghan-poppy-field-opium-1024x683.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Afghan-poppy-field-opium-768x512.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Afghan-poppy-field-opium-1536x1024.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Afghan-poppy-field-opium-2048x1365.jpeg 2048w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Afghan-poppy-field-opium-1400x933.jpeg 1400w\" data-sizes=\"auto\" \/><figcaption class=\"absolute text-white p-4 w-full text-right text-xs bottom-0 bg-black opacity-75\">\n\t\t\t\tIn this photograph taken on April 13, 2019, Afghan farmers harvest opium sap from a poppy field in the Gereshk district of Helmand province. \/ Getty Images\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\t\t\t<span class=\"text-gray text-xs md:text-lg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/author\/adam-kredo\/\" title=\"Posts by Adam Kredo\" class=\"author url fn text-red-700\" rel=\"author\">Adam Kredo<\/a> \u2022 February 2, 2022 2:50 pm<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Afghanistan&#8217;s opium production skyrocketed in 2021, potentially providing the Taliban government a source of revenue between $1.8 billion and $2.7 billion, according to a new report from the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR).<\/p>\n<p>The war-torn nation&#8217;s illegal opiate production in 2021 ranked as the third-highest recorded since the United Nations began reporting it in 1994. It comprised between 9 and 14 percent of Afghanistan&#8217;s gross domestic product and exceeded the value of all of the country\u2019s officially recorded legal exports in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>The surge in opium production comes as the U.S. government allocates millions to combat the spread of illicit drugs in the country, according to SIGAR&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sigar.mil\/pdf\/quarterlyreports\/2022-01-30qr.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">latest report<\/a>, released on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>While the Taliban has vowed to combat opium production\u2014even though it could serve a lucrative source of revenue for the terrorist regime\u2014SIGAR says it &#8220;has seen no evidence that the Taliban are enforcing or can enforce such a ban. On the contrary, the opium trade in Afghanistan appears to be flourishing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In fact, opium dealers, who once operated in the shadows while the U.S.-backed former government was in power, are now selling their drugs from &#8220;stalls in village markets,&#8221; according to SIGAR&#8217;s report. &#8220;Opium poppy farmers, a key constituency for the Taliban, are likely to resist a ban,&#8221; the watchdog said.<\/p>\n<p>The report quoted one opium seller as saying that the Taliban have &#8220;achieved what they have thanks to opium. None of us will let them ban opium unless the international community helps the Afghan people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Biden administration, meanwhile, has renewed its efforts to inject millions of dollars in U.S. aid into the country without formal ties with the Taliban or officially recognizing its rule.<\/p>\n<p>The State Department reported last year that the U.S. Agency for International Development had &#8220;suspended all contact with the Afghan government, and terminated, suspended, or paused all on-budget assistance.&#8221; The latest report, however, discloses that USAID has &#8220;resumed some off-budget,&#8221; U.S.-managed activities in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p>The White House announced last month it sent an additional $308 million in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, where poverty and hunger has run rampant since the Taliban in August 2021 retook control of the country amid a bungled evacuation of U.S. forces.<\/p>\n<p>Still, Afghanistan&#8217;s citizens are starving. More than half of the population faces a &#8220;tsunami of hunger,&#8221; according to the United Nations. This is the result of &#8220;record drought, rising food prices, internal displacement, and the severe economic downturn and collapse of public services following the Taliban&#8217;s return to power in August.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Around 22.8 million Afghans will be at &#8220;potentially life-threatening levels of hunger this winter,&#8221; with around 8.7 million facing &#8220;near-famine conditions.&#8221; Another one million are at risk of dying, according to SIGAR, which cites statistics from a recent Integrated Food Security Phase Classification study.<\/p>\n<p>Up to 97 percent of Afghanistan&#8217;s population is now at risk of slipping below the poverty line by mid-2022 &#8220;as a result of the worsening political and economic crises,&#8221; according to the report.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, the Biden administration&#8217;s failure to evacuate skilled Afghan soldiers who worked for the country&#8217;s former fighting force has likely led to them joining the ISIS terrorist group, according to the SIGAR report.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with former Afghan general Sami Sadat, SIGAR learned that &#8220;Afghan fighters, especially commandos and intelligence officers, could lead to IS-K&#8217;s resurgence. Sadat said these people would be especially vulnerable to IS-K recruitment. Sadat added that this issue needs to be addressed more systematically, noting that IS-K may have the capability to take eastern Afghanistan quickly and establish itself in Kabul within a year.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>National Security Taliban could rake in up to $2.7 billion from illicit drugs  In this photograph taken on April 13, 2019, Afghan farmers harvest opium sap &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1266028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1266028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1266028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1266028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1266028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}