Taliban 'Narco Terrorist' Convicted in US Court

Hundreds of tons of chemicals seized

(NEWSER) - The UN has been quietly striking a major blow against the Taliban with a widely successful international attack on its heroin trade, Bloomberg reports. The campaign has seized several hundred tons of acetic anhydride bound for Afghanistan. Without the chemical, the Taliban can’t convert its poppy, which sells for about $100 per kilo, into heroin, which fetches about $3,500 per kilo. More»

$37M project facilitates opium smuggling into Tajikistan

(NEWSER) - A US-built bridge linking Afghanistan and Tajikistan that cost taxpayers $37 million has greatly benefited exporters of Afghan opium, McClatchy reports. The bridge over the Panj river was supposed to facilitate commerce between the two nations, but the surging flow of opium across Afghanistan’s northern border threatens to turn Tajikistan—still weakened from 5 years of civil war in the 1990s—into a narco-state. More»

(NEWSER) - The US is changing tactics in its war against the Afghan opium trade, the AP reports. Rather than targeting crops for eradication, the US will focus on interdiction and alternative crop programs. A top administration official called eradication “a waste of money” that failed to divert “a single dollar” of the roughly $70 million militants made in the opium and heroin trade last year. More»

International agencies alarmed by 8,000 of tons of missing opium

(NEWSER) - A huge pile of missing opium has international law enforcement agencies worried, Time reports. The UN estimates up to 8,000 tons of opium—enough to supply every addict in the world for two years—have disappeared between Afghanistan's poppy fields and the world market in recent years. Experts fear the Taliban is building a mammoth stockpile of the drug. More»

Poppy crop jumps 34% over last year

(NEWSER) - Afghanistan's opium production has soared over the last year and the country now supplies 93% of the world's opiates. Most of the poppies are grown along the country's southern border with Pakistan, where the insurgency is strong, security is weak, and the Taliban continues to use its drug profits to buy guns and keep itself running, reports the BBC. More»