In continuing to look at the opium trade, we again visit the work of Pierre-arnaud Chouvy, who published a report titled “Drugs and the Financing of Terrorism,” which helps to answer the following questions about the links that exist between opium and terrorism.
Pierre-arnaud is a research fellow at CNRS in France. He hosts the site www.geopium.org, which focuses on geopolitics of illicit drugs with a focus on Asia.
Q: From a bird's-eye view, how is the opium trade in Afghanistan linked with terrorism?
The financing of terrorism through illicit drug trafficking has been touted as a major problem since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Indeed, during the last decade, Afghanistan has been the most important opium-producing country in the world. It was under Taliban rule in 1999 that opium production reached its height with a 4,581-ton yield. Moreover, the fact that al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden found a safe haven in that country raised concerns about the possible emergence of a more global and pernicious alliance between drug traffickers and terrorists.
But three years after the ouster of the Taliban, Afghanistan's opium production is expected to exceed even 1999's record high, thus raising concerns that the country is on the verge of becoming a "narco-state" and a bastion of "narco-terrorism." Antonio Maria Costa, the Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, warned of "mounting evidence of drug money being used to finance criminal activities, including terrorism," and declared that "fighting drug trafficking equals fighting terrorism."
A few cases have been highlighted by the media as evidence of al-Qaeda tapping into the opium economy of Afghanistan, even though the claims in themselves do not constitute an argument for the existence of any organized form of "narco-terrorism."
Q: What does the term “narco-terrorism” mean?
Terrorist outfits are not less likely than others to at least try to benefit from such a resource, especially in a country like Afghanistan where the opium economy is estimated to equal half of the country's legitimate gross domestic product. However, for the term not to become hackneyed, it seems that "narco-terrorism" should not refer to terrorist groups that have been only partly funded by illegal drugs, but rather to identify organized narcotics traffickers who seek to affect the policies of a government by terrorist means.
Moreover, when one considers the direct and/or indirect involvement of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence in the drug trade, it further complicates the adequacy of a category such as "narco-terrorism" and would require comparing how different actors like resistance guerrillas, intelligence and counter-insurgency agencies, and terrorist organizations use the drug economy.
Pierre-arnaud is a research fellow at CNRS in France. He hosts the site www.geopium.org, which focuses on geopolitics of illicit drugs with a focus on Asia.
Q: From a bird's-eye view, how is the opium trade in Afghanistan linked with terrorism?
The financing of terrorism through illicit drug trafficking has been touted as a major problem since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Indeed, during the last decade, Afghanistan has been the most important opium-producing country in the world. It was under Taliban rule in 1999 that opium production reached its height with a 4,581-ton yield. Moreover, the fact that al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden found a safe haven in that country raised concerns about the possible emergence of a more global and pernicious alliance between drug traffickers and terrorists.
But three years after the ouster of the Taliban, Afghanistan's opium production is expected to exceed even 1999's record high, thus raising concerns that the country is on the verge of becoming a "narco-state" and a bastion of "narco-terrorism." Antonio Maria Costa, the Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, warned of "mounting evidence of drug money being used to finance criminal activities, including terrorism," and declared that "fighting drug trafficking equals fighting terrorism."
A few cases have been highlighted by the media as evidence of al-Qaeda tapping into the opium economy of Afghanistan, even though the claims in themselves do not constitute an argument for the existence of any organized form of "narco-terrorism."
Q: What does the term “narco-terrorism” mean?
Terrorist outfits are not less likely than others to at least try to benefit from such a resource, especially in a country like Afghanistan where the opium economy is estimated to equal half of the country's legitimate gross domestic product. However, for the term not to become hackneyed, it seems that "narco-terrorism" should not refer to terrorist groups that have been only partly funded by illegal drugs, but rather to identify organized narcotics traffickers who seek to affect the policies of a government by terrorist means.
Moreover, when one considers the direct and/or indirect involvement of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence in the drug trade, it further complicates the adequacy of a category such as "narco-terrorism" and would require comparing how different actors like resistance guerrillas, intelligence and counter-insurgency agencies, and terrorist organizations use the drug economy.
Q: Does al-Queda benefit from drug trafficking?
According to Western intelligence agencies, "recent busts have revealed evidence of al-Qaeda's ties to the trade." Such ties were inferred by various seizures of narcotics such as the one made by the U.S. Navy in the Arabian Sea on a small fishing boat aboard which "several al-Qaeda guys sitting on a bale of drugs" were found. In another case, the Kabul house of a drug trafficker was raided and a dozen satellite phones, used to call numbers "linked to suspected terrorists" in Turkey, the Balkans and Western Europe, were found. Hitherto, arguably the most serious case involving a connection between drug traffickers and "terrorists" is that revolving around the network of Haji Juma Khan, an Afghan national. According to some reports, western intelligence agencies are said to believe that Khan is the head of a heroin-trafficking organization that is a "principal source of funding for the Taliban and al-Qaida terrorists." Khan's boats would allegedly ship Afghan heroin out of the Pakistani port of Karachi and would return from the Middle East loaded with arms for both al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Mirwais Yasini, the head of Afghanistan's Counter Narcotics Directorate, who estimates that the Taliban and its allies derived more than $150 million from drugs in 2003, also alleges that there are "central linkages" between Khan, Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden.
The independent commission investigating the September 11th attacks recently declared that "the US government still has not determined with any precision how much al Qaeda raises or from whom, or how it spends its money." According to this report, al-Qaeda is mainly funded by rich individuals from the Persian Gulf and by some Islamic charities. Of greater interest, still, is the commission's assertion that there is "no substantial evidence that al Qaeda played a major role in the drug trade or relied on it as an important source of revenue either before or after 9/11."
Q: If it is true—if opium and illicit drug money serves al-Queda and the Taliban, do they benefit equally? Are they both equally involved?
If al-Qaeda is connected to the opium economy of Afghanistan, it would not be at the production level but higher up in the chain of drug processing and trafficking, most likely involving the protection of heroin laboratories and trafficking caravans. As for where the money generated from drug production and trafficking goes, it has always been divided iniquitously, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, among farmers who receive the smallest share; producers/warlords who condone or encourage production in their territory, and local and regional traffickers who get the biggest share.
Al-Qaeda is likely to have become involved in the drug trade after the ouster of the Taliban, who were after all levying taxes on the opium trade. It is also important to stress that it was the Taliban who benefited from al-Qaeda's funding and not the other way round. Indeed, as stated by the 9/11 commission, "prior to 9/11 the largest single al Qaeda expense was support for the Taliban, estimated at about $20 million per year."
Moreover, knowledgeable observers agree that the drug trade was at that time the Taliban's second source of revenue, estimated at $80 or $100 million in 1999. This reliable estimate casts serious doubt on allegations that the Taliban earned more from drugs in 2003 than in 1999 when opium production was higher and when they controlled 85% of Afghanistan. Besides, the 9/11 commission declared that "intelligence collection efforts have failed to corroborate rumours of current narcotic trafficking. In fact, there is compelling evidence the al Qaeda leadership does not like or trust those who today control the drug trade in Southwest Asia, and has encouraged its members not to get involved."Q: In linking drug trafficking to terrorism, is the connection really there—or is it fueled by political agenda?
The argument that the threat of narco-terrorism—whatever its definition—in Afghanistan and elsewhere is hyped by political and sectional interests rather than originating from hard intelligence is clearly not without foundation. Moreover, while there is little doubt that some proceeds of the illicit drug trade contribute partially to the funding of some terrorist outfits, drug trafficking is still far from being the main financing source of global terrorism. Indeed, it is clear that terrorists and drug traffickers have differing long-term goals, which should be considered in the methods used to counter both. Thus, fighting drug trafficking does not necessarily equate to fighting terrorism, even though "narco-terrorism," depicted as a threat by certain sectional interests, arguably legitimates and reinforces a failed global war on drugs.
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