Helmand Police Chief Abdul Nabi has said that drug smugglers provide support to militants. Talking in a press conference in Lashkar Gah, Nabi said drug dealers fund insurgents in order to keep their business smooth and buy protection. He said during a recent campaign in Sangin District, they found that 400 militants were hired by drug dealers to fight against the poppy cultivation campaign. "Received documents and evidences indicate that during the recent clash in Sangin District, the drug smugglers hired 400 insurgents for 100,000 Pakistani rupees each, to fight against the security forces. It has been also found that the smugglers promised these men 200,000 Pakistani rupees for their families if they were killed in the clash. These evidences clearly show that the armed opposition groups are being supported by the drug smugglers," he added.
It is not a new phenomenon that Taliban insurgency gets a large amount of its funding from drug money. They are not only involved in protection of drug lords and their fields collecting taxes and revenue, but also support smuggling networks. Militants receive millions of dollars in annual revenues from the drug business.
The 2013 UN Assessment Report on poppy cultivation says that there has been a significant rise in poppy growth and it is linked with high prices for last few years and harvest has now spread to areas which were previously poppy-free. It further says that poppy cultivation is not only expected to expand in areas where it already existed in 2012 but also in new areas or in areas where poppy cultivation was stopped. Villages with a low level of security and those which had not received agricultural assistance in the previous year were significantly more likely to grow poppy in 2013.
The increase has been significant in Southern provinces. More than a third of Afghanistan's total opium production now takes place in Helmand and Kandahar.
The percentage of increase shows an alarming situation, particularly at a time when the country is in transition. The UN report says Afghan efforts to stamp out poppy cultivation are failing. More help is needed to provide alternatives to farmers, in law enforcement support and in cooperation from other countries in the region.
The government and international forces should enforce the poppy eradication campaign. Aside from the fact that a huge part of the financial support to insurgents come from transport and smuggling of opium, it’s also exporting deaths to millions of people around the world, and the number of drug addicts is increasing in Afghanistan.