The Turbaned Drug Cartel

In his now classic novel, Mothsmoke, the Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid, traces drug culture among Pakistan’s elites. However the drug-trade affects millions and millions of people in Pakistan from all levels of society. People who visit the country can regularly see victims of the drug-trade at shrines, in parks, at the beaches and in the shade of the mosques. The deleterious impact of the drug trade in Pakistan has been taken as a given for decades without much public discussion about it.

Recently, a book called Seeds of Terror: How Heroin is Bankrolling the Taliban and al-Qaeda, by investigative journalist Gretchen Peters, exposes how deeply involved in the drug-trade are groups like the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Money, not religion, seems to be their motivation. In her interviews (linked below) she actually says that Taliban commanders are “running refineries.” She compares the Taliban’s evolution from an ideological insurgency to one that is primarily drug-fueled similar to the transformation of the FARC in Columbia. She does not believe that the Taliban are running the entire drug-operation yet, but they are engaged in trafficking, taxing, and taking a cut (just the Afghan Taliban are making about half a billion dollars a year), that is certainly headed in that direction.

Publishers Weekly describes the book as follows:

Journalist Peters draws on 10 years of reporting from Afghanistan and Pakistan for this important examination of the nexus of [drug] smugglers and extremists in the global war against terrorists. Citing firsthand testimony, classified intelligence reports and specialized studies, Peters builds a solid case for her contention that the union of narco-traffickers, terrorist groups, and the international criminal underworld is the new axis of evil. Ground zero is Afghanistan, where the rejuvenated Taliban depend on opium for 70% of its funds and there is overwhelming circumstantial evidence of Osama bin Laden’s involvement in the drug trade.

Arif Rafiq at the excellent Pakistan Policy blog, gave it a positive review, identifying that there are two components of the trade, Afghan & Pakistani. With respect to the Pakistan side of things he notes:

In Pakistan, the drug trade has linkages to Afghan militants based there, Baloch leaders, tangential politicians affiliated with the PPP and PML-N (and I’d add — probably the ANP or PkMAP as well), the military-intelligence establishment (though this peaked in the 1980s), and possibly even the Karachi Stock Exchange (used for money laundering).  The problem in Pakistan at times has been that one arm of the state has been working to root out the drug trade, while the other hand has used the trade to fund its clandestine activities.

Pakistan has effectively eliminated poppy growth inside its territory, but it is the major transit point for Afghan drugs.  The deletrious impact of the drug trade comes in the form of the syringes that wash up on the Karachi shores, the subsuming illicit trade via Afghanistan that denies Pakistan over a billion dollars in annual duties revenue, and the terrorists that have been murdering innocent Pakistanis in recent years.

Ms. Peters made an appearance on The Daily Show and below is a full interview she gave to Al-Jazeera English’s Riz Khan show.