Terrorism and drug trade

June 26, 2018 marks the International Day against drug abuse and illicit trafficking. The worldwide observance was decided by the United Nations General Assembly in 1987 to raise the level of awareness in the international community about the dangers of drug abuse, to prevent its spread and to encourage all efforts to combat the menace at international level. Each year the United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) selects theme for the day and this year the theme is "LET'S DEVELOP OUR LIVES, OUR COMMUNITIES, OUR IDENTITIES, WITHOUT DRUGS'.
Terrorism, drugs-for-arms and money laundering, intrinsically linked, pose a considerable threat to global peace and security besides destabilising political and financial stability of many nation States. These menaces got accelerated in the wake of 9/11's ghastly incident in New York. The militants and extremists have nexus with criminal networks involved in drug and arms. Evidence available with intelligence agencies confirms that from Al Qaeda to Daesh the real challenge is that of free flow of legal and illegal funds. Till today, international community has failed to sever their financial lifeline.
It is an open secret how the drug trade in the post-Taliban Afghanistan was institutionalised-courtesy the puppet regime in Kabul and patronisation of war lords in many provinces of Afghanistan. Once opium started processed into morphine and heroin inside Afghanistan at mass scale, it brought tons of money for commanders on the ground. Controlled democracy in Afghanistan since 2004 has been playing into the hands of more sophisticated narco-enriched commanders. It is no more a secret that the Taliban, with whom the US and allies have always been in negotiations, since 2004 knew how to buy or muscle a vote which would protect their opium interests in every election. Even the neighbours of Afghanistan have been making profits from the windfall: criminal groups from Central Asia, says the UN, made profits of $15.2 billion from the trafficking of opiates in 2015 and the figure for 2017 according to World Drug Report 2017 was $22.8 billion. Tajikistan is by far the worst affected by the drug plague, due to a combination of history, poverty and geography.
In the late 1990s, drug trade was believed to be a source of finance for the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a terrorist group which had bases in Afghanistan and Tajikistan. After the war in Afghanistan, the IMU lost most of its influence, but the drugs trade continued, with organised criminals taking the place of political or religious activists. In a survey conducted by the Open Society Institute, eight out of ten of those polled said, hardly surprisingly, that "the main reason to turn to drug trafficking was to make big money". Geography also contributed to Tajikistan's drugs problem: at 1,400km, the country's border with Afghanistan is longer than its Central Asian neighbours', and commensurately more difficult to guard.
Afghanistan's north-eastern province of Badakhshan, an important poppy-growing area, is close to the border with Tajikistan. From there, most narcotics move to Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan before continuing to Kazakhstan and onwards to Russia.
'Golden Triangle' source of most dangerous drugs
China says Southeast Asia's lawless `Golden Triangle' region remains the overwhelming source of the heroin and methamphetamine used in the country. A Cabinet report on China's drug situation released on 24 June 2015 underscored the threat posed by the region incorporating parts of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand, despite efforts at cross-border cooperation. It said that 90% of the 9.3 tons of heroin and 11.4 tons of methamphetamine seized in 2014 came from the area that borders China's southern province of Yunnan.
The report was the government's first comprehensive look at drug use in China, where synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine and ketamine overtook heroin in popularity. It said China had by the end of 2013 about 3 million registered drug users, but estimates of those who had tried drugs ran as high as 14 million.
Three of Afghanistan's five big drug-producing provinces, Helmand, Uruzgan, and Kandahar, over the period of time have emerged as 'new Colombia'-places where drug lords capture and wreck governments and the economy alike. The successive Afghan governments in post-Taliban period have made little progress against poppy-growing, except declaring it illegal and establishing a new policy body, the Counter-Narcotics Department (CND). The goal of 100% elimination by 2013 proved a farce, in reality production has increased after the establishment of CND as confirmed by International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) 2018.
While INCSR highlights the spectre of the Taliban, it does not discuss the widespread poverty in Afghanistan and growing gap between rich and poor. For many local politicians, such economic factors, along with natural disasters and border problems, constitute far bigger headaches than the Taliban. Human rights activists contend that the 'Taliban threat' is being exaggerated to crush all forms of dissent, religious or otherwise. But even those who think that Islamic radicalism and terrorism are real dangers criticise the US-backed governments for not countering the Taliban through economic initiatives.
America could have played a useful role by acknowledging and supporting the efforts of Iran that waged all out crackdown on warlords and commanders engaged in drug trade. However, the Americans were supporting them. People are thus skeptical of US policies in Afghanistan to counter drug trade and religious fundamentalism and Chinese view this as 'hidden agenda' for its containment through militancy using Islamic Card as was done against erstwhile USSR.
(The writers, lawyers and authors of many books, have been studying since 1980 the linkages of heroin trade with terrorism. They are authors of many articles and two books on this phenomenon, Pakistan: From Hash to Heroin and its sequel Pakistan: From Drug-trap to Debt-trap)