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Drug dealers to be arrested without exceptions

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(Last Updated On: October 25, 2022)

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After publishing an investigative report about the market of drugs in the capital of Afghanistan, the deputy minister of counter narcotics has received a decree from President Ghani to arrest the drug distributers.

The deputy minister says that the process of arresting drug dealers all across the country started last week and will continue.

The counter narcotic debate is a reminder of how unwieldy the alliance’s military operations can be. United Nations figures show that Afghan insurgents reap at least $100 million a year from the drug trade, although some estimates put the figure at five times as much.

For the Taliban, taxes on poppy farmers and opium dealers helped to finance the movement’s rogue state. For Al Qaeda terrorists, the officials warned, the opium trade might also be a way to move money or fund attacks. At the least, Afghanistan’s mix of political radicalism and diplomatic isolation had made for a drug threat that appeared to be well beyond America’s reach.

But more important than the Taliban’s sincerity may have been the fact that drug production could be regulated at all. With little more than Mullah Omar’s decree, poppy cultivation stopped virtually overnight with surprisingly few reports of repression against the farmers. Had such a thing happened almost anywhere else in the world, it would probably have been hailed as one of the greatest achievements in the history of drug enforcement.

The problem that Afghanistan posed under the Taliban was not an isolated one. Over the last decade or so, as anti-drug campaigns have advanced in relatively coherent states like Pakistan, Iran, Thailand and Bolivia, more of the world’s drug supply has begun to come from so-called rogue states, or from regions that government authority simply doesn’t reach.

After Afghanistan, the world’s biggest opium producer these days is Burma. Most of the world’s supply of coca, the raw material for cocaine, comes from regions of Colombia dominated by leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitary forces.

The Taliban’s concentration on their drug interests begins each year during the fall planting season. At that time, commanders often provide seeds, fertilizers, and advance payments and are always ready with promises of protection.
“In most districts, the Taliban are encouraging villagers to plant as many poppy seeds as possible and are assuring the farmers that the insurgency will shield their cultivation from government eradication efforts,” Abdali explains.

(Despite a big push, government eradication efforts have been largely ineffective, with just 6 percent of the some 380,000 acres of poppies planted last year having been destroyed, according to the UNODC.)

To tackle the problem of narcotics, the Afghan government and its international partners have initiated tough measures in recent years.

“Earlier the drug dealers would get away for carrying 5 gram opium, but now strict action is taken against those arrested,” says Mohammad Zahid, who has taken part in many anti-narcotic campaigns.

While Afghanistan continues to be the largest producer of drugs in the world, it was not the largest consumer until recently. Now, one million out of a population of 35 million are addicted to drugs, according to Ministry of Counter Narcotics (MoCN).

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US urges IEA to fulfill counter-terrorism commitments

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(Last Updated On: March 29, 2024)

The US State Department said on Thursday that Washington is committed to ensuring that Afghanistan can never again be a launching pad for terrorism.

“We remain committed to ensuring that Afghanistan can never again be a launching pad for terrorism, and we continue to push the Taliban (Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan) to fulfill all of their counterterrorism commitments to the international community,” the department’s spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a news briefing in Washington.

He reiterated that the United States had clearly communicated to the IEA that it’s their responsibility to ensure that “they give no safe haven to terrorists, whether it be Al Qaeda or ISIS-K or any other terrorist organization”.

Miller also reassured US allies that Washington was closely watching the developments in Afghanistan and was ready to deal with any threat emerging from the region.

“We remain vigilant against the evolving threat of these terrorist groups, and our global coalition to defeat ISIS and the C5+1 help intensify our efforts to monitor terrorist threats from the region and prevent their ability to raise funds, travel, and spread propaganda,” he said.

C5+1 refers to a diplomatic platform involving the five Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgy­zstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) and the United States. It serves as a forum for discussing and addressing regional issues such as security, economic development, and cooperation.

“The United States remains vigilant against the evolving threat posed by terrorist groups, including ISIS-K, and has maintained an unwavering focus on terrorism since President Joe Biden took office three years ago,” Miller said.

The US, he said, was “working both unilaterally and with its partners to successfully disrupt threats across the globe and degrade ISIS”.

“We will continue to work to hold ISIS accountable for its actions and to prevent terrorist attacks against the United States and other Western countries,” Miller said.

This comes as IEA has repeatedly said that it is committed to not allowing anyone to use Afghanistan soil against any other country.

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IEA condemns Israel for confiscating 800 hectares of land in West Bank’s Jordan Valley

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(Last Updated On: March 29, 2024)

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) strongly condemned on Thursday Israel’s decision to seize 800 hectares of land in the occupied West Bank’s Jordan Valley region.

In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said that the recent actions by “the Zionist regime demonstrate that it does not to adhere to international laws, especially international humanitarian law.”

“Continuation of such unilateral actions and ignoring the rights of Palestinian people will further deteriorate the situation,” the statement said.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan expects international actors, particularly influential regional Muslim countries to fulfill their legitimate, human and moral responsibilities in supporting the oppressed people of Palestine and prevent the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied territories,” it added.

Israeli media have reported that Israel seized 800 hectares of land in the Jordan Valley region of the occupied West Bank, claiming it as “state land.”

It is reported the seized land could be used for the construction of illegal Jewish settlements.

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ISIS-K leader reportedly living in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

Sanaullah Ghaffari, also known as Shahab al-Muhajar, is reportedly the ISIS-Khorasan (Daesh) branch leader and is holed up in Pakistan, Reuters reports.

The 29-year-old took over as leader in 2020 and under his leadership the group has carried out extreme attacks as a means of recruiting, Reuters reported.

Reuters noted that little was known about Ghafari before the deadly 2021 ISIS attack on Kabul Airport, which killed 170 Afghan civilians and 13 American soldiers.

But after Friday’s deadly attack in a concert hall in Moscow, which left 139 people dead, Ghaffari’s group has come under intense scrutiny.

Reuters reports that Ghaffari is said to have been involved in several attacks in Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan.

Pakistani officials said months ago that Ghaffari had been killed in Kunar province in Afghanistan in June last year, but Reuters has reported that he did not die and instead fled to Pakistan and lives in the border province of Baluchistan.

Abdul Matin Qani, the spokesman of the Ministry of Interior of Afghanistan, says that Daesh has been suppressed in Afghanistan for more than two years and has lost its operational capacity.

The last attack carried out by Daesh in Afghanistan was the attack on the Kabul Bank office in Kandahar last week which left three dead and 12 wounded.

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