To the Point
Following the Opium Money in Afghanistan
A Senate committee says two federal agencies have lowered conventional estimates of how much drug money is going to the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency say the Taliban get about $70 million a year from Afghanistan's opium poppies, much less than the $400 million estimated by the UN last year.
By Warren Olney • • 1 min readA Senate committee says two federal agencies have lowered conventional estimates of how much drug money is going to the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency say the Taliban get about $70 million a year from Afghanistan's opium poppies, much less than the $400 million estimated by the UN last year. Al Qaeda may not be getting much at all. Gretchen Peters is author of Seeds of Terror, which argues that both religious terrorist groups have evolved into narco-terrorist syndicates with religious overtones.
