MENA

Dismantling Afghanistan's Opium Empire: How the heroin-rich Taliban could become the world's most ironic counter-narcotics champion

Dismantling Afghanistan's Opium Empire: How the heroin-rich Taliban could become the world's most ironic counter-narcotics champion

Since the toppling of their regime in 2001, the Taliban have demanded recognition from Kabul as a legitimate political actor in a country where they enjoy substantial support among segments of the population, not least for for the economic and infrastructural systems they helped cultivate and on which nearly all rural Afghans depend. The Taliban have a near monopoly on a global commodity representing a $4 billion dollar a year industry that necessitates the sustainment of elaborate supply chains: opium. But a deeper conflict analysis foretells a future in which the Taliban could soon be incentivized not only to walk away from its lucrative drug empire but become an ardent counter-narcotics partner to the Kabul government and its international backers.