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Drug dealers to be arrested without exceptions
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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Girls’ education is a ‘vital issue’ for Afghanistan: Karzai
Former president Hamid Karzai said in a meeting with Iran’s ambassador and special representative, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, that education of girls was a “vital issue” for Afghanistan.
Karzai said he appreciated Iran’s cooperation and its standing with the Afghan people, especially Iran’s contributions to education in Afghanistan.
During the meeting, Karzai said peace and stability in the region are in the interest of all regional countries.
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Uzbekistan’s humanitarian aid arrives in Balkh
A shipment of humanitarian aid from Uzbekistan was handed over on Thursday to the local officials of Balkh province in the trade port of Hairatan.
Local authorities said the aid, which includes flour, oil, wheat, sugar and meat, has been handed over by Uzbekistan’s Surkhandarya governor to the governor of Balkh.
The governor of Surkhandarya stated the purpose of sending this aid was to support the people of Afghanistan and stressed the need for the development of good relations between the two countries.
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Afghanistan’s problems caused more damage to Pakistan than 3 wars with India: Durrani
Islamabad’s special envoy for Afghanistan Asif Durrani said on Wednesday that Pakistan has suffered more due to Afghanistan’s internal situation than Pakistan has suffered in three wars with India in terms of blood spilt and finances drained.
Durrani said at a one-day International Conference titled “Pakistan in the Emerging Geopolitical Landscape”, which was organized by the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI) and the German Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), that over 80,000 Pakistanis died in the two decades of the War on Terror and that his country was still counting its dead and injured.
“After the withdrawal of NATO forces, it was hoped that peace in Afghanistan would bring peace to the region. However, such expectations were short-lived,” he said.
He also stated that attacks by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militant group on Pakistan’s border areas increased by 65 percent, while suicide attacks increased by 500 percent.
“The TTP’s enhanced attacks on Pakistan while using Afghan soil have been a serious concern for Pakistan. Another worrying aspect is the participation of Afghan nationals in these attacks,” he said.
Durrani also said Pakistan had suffered geopolitically since the Soviet Union invaded the neighboring country.
“The post-9/11 world order has negatively impacted Pakistan. Apart from losing 80,000 citizens’ lives, including 8,000 law enforcement agency personnel, the country’s economic opportunity cost is estimated at $150 billion,” Durrani said.
Talking about the future outlook for Pakistan in the regional context, Durrani said that while “our eastern neighbor is likely to continue with its anti-Pakistan pursuits, the western border poses an avoidable irritant in the short to medium term.”
However, he said Pakistan can overcome its difficulties with Afghanistan, including the TTP challenge.
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