Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: Drug Trafficking

Drug Trafficking

Clashes in Eastern Tajikistan – with Afghan Participation?

Thomas Ruttig •

Local media speak of ‘unprecedented violence’, after Tajik security forces have started a ‘special operation’ against what the government in Dushanbe calls an ‘armed, illegal group involved in drug trafficking and also tobacco smuggling and the trafficking of minerals’, following the murder of a high-ranking security official. Interestingly, it has claimed there were Afghan citizens […]

Regional Relations Read more

Afghanistan’s Fluctuating Poppy Production: More Than a Poverty Problem

Doris Buddenberg •

Afghanistan’s area of poppy cultivation has increased by 7 per cent compared to the last year and more provinces cultivate poppy than then. This is the gist of annual opium survey for the country for 2012. There are no predictions about how many (thousands of) tons this will be. And the publishers – the UN […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

Afghan Air Force Probed in Drug Running

admin •

Wall Street Journal, 7 March 2012 And one more report on corruption: ‘The U.S. is investigating allegations that some officials in the Afghan Air Force, which was established largely with American funds, have been using aircraft to ferry narcotics and illegal weapons around the country […]. An AAF spokesman, Lt. Col. Mohammed Bahadur, denied the […]

Recommended Reads Read more

Intractable Afghan Graft Hampering U.S. Strategy

admin •

New York Times, 7 March 2012 An update on the KabulBank scandal and a rendering of a fascinating ‘new’ corruption case, involving Afghan Army’s former surgeon general, Gen. Ahmad Zia Yaftali ‘suspended in December 2010 after Gen. David H. Petraeus, then the coalition commander, told Mr. Karzai that NATO investigators had found that the Afghan […]

Recommended Reads Read more

Rising Opium Production in Helmand

admin •

IWPR, 3 January 2012 Farmers in Afghanistan’s Helmand province say they are determined to grow as much opium poppy as they can this season. Some blame official efforts to encourage them to switch to other crops, which they say have failed to lift them out of poverty. Others say the Taleban intimidate them into colluding […]

Recommended Reads Read more

Bad Lieutenants in Nimruz

Fabrizio Foschini •

Nimruz lies at one of the forgotten edges of Afghanistan, so forgotten that it is possibly the province generating the lowest amount of news per square kilometre. A most brutal and brazen episode of violence involving the police there offers AAN’s Fabrizio Foschini the occasion to report on the province and its main feature – […]

War and Peace Read more

Afghanistan Money Probe Hits Close to the President

admin •

Wall Street Journal, 12 August 2010 The raid on the New Ansari hawala: another story about links worth billions between the drug industry and government structures.

Recommended Reads Read more

Drugs, plots and stockpiles: Afghanistan’s failing poppy crop

Kate Clark •

A mysterious desease is spreading through Afghanistan’s poppy fields: Is it a secret counter-narcotics operation or simply caused by nature? And what do ‘the markets say’? Answers given by Kate Clark, AAN Senior Analyst ‘Reports of a “mysterious” fungus that has damaged opium poppy crops in Afghanistan have hit international headlines’ writes a breathless commentator […]

Context and Culture Read more

Citha D. Maaß: Afghanistans Drogenkarriere (Afghanistan’s Drug Career: From War to Drug Economy)

admin •

SWP Research Paper S2, January 2010 In this best paper about Afghanistan’s drug economy since a long time (it is in German but SWP should be urged to translate it as quickly as possible), the Berlin-based scholar not only reviews the latest trends in this field but also puts the analysis of these developments on […]

Recommended Reads Read more

The master of Spin Boldak

admin •

Harper’s Magazine, December 2009 Matthieu Aikins’ undercover reportage ‘with Afghanistan’s drug-trafficking border police’ commander Abdul Raziq – an exemplaric story

Recommended Reads Read more

Militias – The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’s Genies (1): A Look Back

Thomas Ruttig •

When I read Matthieu Aikins’ brilliant reportage in Harpers (‘The Master of Spin Boldak’) about the mutation of a 1980s tribal militia into a drug trafficking network that survives to the day, I was reminded of an episode in 1988. I was living in Wazir Akbar Khan then. Around the corner was the house of […]

Context and Culture Read more

Subscribe to receive updates from the Afghanistan Analysts Network

Sign up