Taliban Funding

[wtf]

WTF:

If in combating heroin production the objective is to cut down things on the supply side (banning acetic anhydride) then it may be successful, if you can actually regulate all suppliers and legitimate users of that chemical. But if you are going to try and chase down the labs and transit routes, it is going to be futile, for the reasons I mentioned.

Even in the US, with all of the resources and well developed institutions that have been focused on the demand side, the drugs still make it through.

There is no long term alternative to cutting down on poppy production. The Afghan farmers need to move to alternate crops as the GoP convinced the farmers to do so in Pakistan.

Agreed. In the longer term, to combat the menace of drugs there is only 2 solutions. Either get rid of all the users or get rid of all the producers.

What I am trying to do is to get as much data as possible and to see how big the terror funding from drug trade could be.When I am talking of choking off refining, I am only thinking of starving terrorists of funds and not trying to fix the drug problem overall.

 

[TalibanSwatter]

Dawn News

Gulf Supporters funding Militants

ISLAMABAD: The United States said on Friday that Afghan drug trade was not a major source of funding for militancy and extremism in Pakistan. The financing came from extremists’ patrons in Gulf countries — an aspect now being scrutinised, the statement added.
It also dismissed the presence of American weapons with the Taliban as a routine feature of guerilla warfare.

‘Private individuals who support extremists bring money in through illegal means … hawala system and the area focussed is the Gulf Cooperation Council countries,’ US Special Envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke told a media briefing at the American Embassy.

Mr Holbrooke, who had earlier met President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Chief of the Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and ISI chief Lt-Gen Shuja Pasha, said it was ‘a very big issue’ and ‘the most troubling aspect of the entire situation.’

The US, he said, had started looking into the source of financing for the extremists and would be devoting more time to investigate it. He admitted that not much work was done in the past to explore this aspect.

However, he said the much-touted drug trade was not the main financing source for extremism. ‘Even if drug trade stops it won’t have any significant impact.’

His remarks contrasted a recent statement of Afghan counter-narcotics minister General Khodaidad that last year alone $100 million from the drug trade went into the hands of Taliban just for guns, ammunition and bombs.

About reports of US weapons being recovered from militants fighting in Swat and adjoining areas, Mr Holbrooke said that in guerilla warfare captured weapons were always used.

‘It shouldn’t surprise anyone if weapons from the US show up in inventories of the enemies of government. The weapons could have reached the Taliban from people inside.'

However, he did not clarify what actually he meant by the ‘inside job.’

 

[EagleEyes]

PESHAWAR: In the narrow lanes of a market in Pakistan's northwest capital Peshawar, dealers squat on carpets and spread out a rainbow of precious gems on the floor for potential buyers.

Chunks of bright blue lapis lazuli, and rough rocks studded with flashes of light and colour clutter window displays, but no one is buying in a city hit by a wave of deadly bombings blamed on Taliban militia.

A treasure trove of precious stones is locked in the rocks of Pakistan's rugged northwest. Violence, legal tussles and state mismanagement have deterred investors but allowed the Taliban to cash in on the bounty, dealers say.

‘God has given us enormous wealth in terms of emeralds from Swat, rubies, pink topaz, beautiful tourmaline,’ said Ilyas Ali Shah, a gemologist with the government-run Pakistan Gems and Jewellery Development Company.

Shah said that if Pakistan properly mines these deposits the impoverished country could reverse its hefty foreign debt: ‘But we need peace.’

In February this year, militants waging a bloody insurgency to expand control opened three shuttered emerald mines in the northwest Swat valley around the main town Mingora and invited villagers to blast away.

The military says it has reclaimed all Swat mines from the Taliban during a fierce offensive, but for at least three months proceeds from emerald sales lined the militants' coffers and helped bankroll their insurgency.

‘They would collect the emeralds and there would be an open tender every Sunday,’ said Azhar ul Islam, a 44-year-old gem trader from Swat. ‘The profits were divided up — two-thirds for the miner and one-third for the Taliban.’

Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan are believed to hold up to 30-40 per cent of the world's emerald deposits, Shah says, with the precious stone fetching up to 2,000 dollars per carat depending on quality.

Azhar told AFP the Taliban earned about four million rupees a week from Mingora's main mine — shuttered since 1995 because of a legal battle — money he said was spent on ‘buying explosives, making weapons.’

‘I was frightened what would happen if the government re-established control, so I didn't buy those emeralds from the mines, but most of my friends bought these emeralds from the Taliban,’ he said.

At the Namak Mandi market in Peshawar, another dealer from Swat who did not want to be named estimated that the militants made between five and six million rupees a week from the stones.

No one in the market would admit buying Swat emeralds from the Taliban, but one dealer said he procures green garnet from a Taliban-owned mine over the border in Afghanistan, where the militants are also waging an insurgency.

‘We don't like the Taliban, we don't buy it because we want to help them, but we want the stones,’ 30-year-old Ali Akbar told AFP.

He says his business has been crushed by spiralling insecurity in Pakistan since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States thrust the country into the heart of the ‘war on terror’.

‘For five months I had no customers,’ he said.

Shah says Pakistan's gem-industry profits have plunged up to 50 per cent in one year because of the instability, with foreign investors staying away.

Most of the country's gems, including emeralds, garnet, pink topaz, spinel and tourmaline are located underground in North West Frontier Province (NWFP), the heartland of the Taliban insurgency.

Experts say the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) — a mountainous area largely outside government control along the Afghan border and stronghold of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud — hides deposits of rare quartz and precious stones.

‘I think we have explored three per cent of the whole of NWFP. We have large areas of Fata that are not under control, so we have a lot of precious material untapped which needs to be explored and exploited,’ Shah said.

Pervez Elahi Malik, former chairman of the main gem exporters' association, blames the local NWFP government for not sorting out legal tussles and getting potentially lucrative mines up and running under state control years ago.

At the moment, local villagers and tribesmen blast away at the rocks and transport their haul to Namak Mandi — a damaging mining process that experts say can destroy 80 per cent of the stones.

‘We are lacking in technical knowledge, we are lacking stability in the country,’ said Shah. ‘Our mining is not technically sound and safe — we are destroying our wealth.’ — AFP

DAWN.COM | Provinces | Taliban cash in on Pakistan?s untapped gem wealth

 

[TalibanSwatter]

The News July 28 2009

BRUSSELS: The United States is setting up a task force to investigate how money is reaching insurgents in Afghanistan, much of it from within the Gulf states, a US regional envoy said Tuesday.

"This is a huge problem, and we are forming up a task force to work on this in which Treasury (Department) will take the lead," US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

He said the Pentagon, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other "relevant agencies" would be involved.

While he would not mention any figures, Holbrooke said: "More money is coming from the Gulf than is coming from the drug trade to the Taliban."

NATO and US forces are battling Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters and their backers in Afghanistan, with substantial income from the illicit opium trade being used to finance their insurgency.

Holbrooke said the money "is coming in from sympathisers all over the world, with the bulk of it appearing to come from the Gulf", although he said there was no evidence that governments were bankrolling the efforts.

"There are a lot of ways that money flows. People carry it in suitcases," he said, after talks here with NATO, EU and Belgian government officials. "Money is probably coming from sympathisers in western Europe as well."

"It's such a daunting issue," he added.

 

[S-2]

I've been saying this for a long while here at def.pk. Dope is huge but so is this.

 

[Thomas]

Wall Street Journal has an interesting article on the Taliban's funding and it's much as S-2 has surmised-opium and donors- with an added kicker of legitimate businesses either owned by the taliban or from which the taliban are receiving kickbacks.

There's a hidden hand alright- in the gulf and among your own Pakistani sympathizers-

Taliban's Foreign Support Vexes U.S. - WSJ.com

"Pakistani Ambassador Hussein Haqqani said his government had frozen hundreds of bank accounts tied to the Taliban and other extremist groups and said the effort is a 'work in progress...

...The extremist networks continue to find new financing schemes and methods to evade law enforcement,' he said."

Just another example of supposedly piously religious Muslims who publicly are opposed to drugs being hypocrites. And no I am not slamming Islam itself. Just those that supposedly hide behind it but instead are full of all kinds of evil.

 

[seekers]

Source of funding for salfi/wahabi/najdi/deobandi madressa in Pakistan and for terrorist are not different.
One side they are sourcing for Manpower training in madrresas and other sides for their ammunition and daily/monthly expenses.
Bacha baghal mein dhandora saher mein.

one day we would learn this reality likes going ones which we had ignore in past.

 

[Bill Longley]

Source of funding for salfi/wahabi/najdi/deobandi madressa in Pakistan and for terrorist are not different.
One side they are sourcing for Manpower training in madrresas and other sides for their ammunition and daily/monthly expenses.
Bacha baghal mein dhandora saher mein.

one day we would learn this reality likes going ones which we had ignore in past.

seeker
i am a sufi and dont belong to any sect.
but you are spreading hate against muslims. by gross genralization and steriotypeing what you wants to prove.
DO YOU KNOW WHAT IMAM JAFFER e SADIQ (AS) SAID
HAMARA SHIA WOH HAY JO APNAY TAQWAY KE WAJA SAY PEHCHANA JAI(ASOOL e KAAFI)

do you know what sin you are comitting in spreading ur secterian bias



plz stop that

 

[pak-marine]

what about the millions paid by US and other gulf nations to pak when fighting russians in Af... has any one got a figure & facts as how much was donated and where did all the money go?

 

[seekers]

seeker
i am a sufi and dont belong to any sect.
but you are spreading hate against muslims. by gross genralization and steriotypeing what you wants to prove.
DO YOU KNOW WHAT IMAM JAFFER e SADIQ (AS) SAID
HAMARA SHIA WOH HAY JO APNAY TAQWAY KE WAJA SAY PEHCHANA JAI(ASOOL e KAAFI)

do you know what sin you are comitting in spreading ur secterian bias



plz stop that

This is very bitter reality but this is going expose now.You or anyone can't deny this.
yazedis were not only ones who fight against IMAM HUSSAIN(A.S) in KArbala but also ones who did'nt join to help IMAM(A.S) against yazed.
This is not secterian spread!
we don't learn from history and still not paying attention to evil cleric zakir nalaeik who is saying murderer of Grandson of RASOOL ALLAH(SAWW) nauzobilah yazid razi Allah.
condemning the yazidi followers is not secterian.

Mr. Bill you have qoute the Farman of IMAM(A.S) but Taqwah is not that you are seeing in evil cleric zakir nalaik.

This is not shia-sunni fight, that is fight with takfiris who think every one is doing haram and bidat except them and must be wajib al qatal.
For the sake of their rule they spread this fitna outside their country.

 

[Bill Longley]

This is very bitter reality but this is going expose now.You or anyone can't deny this.
yazedis were not only ones who fight against IMAM HUSSAIN(A.S) in KArbala but also ones who did'nt join to help IMAM(A.S) against yazed.
This is not secterian spread!
we don't learn from history and still not paying attention to evil cleric zakir nalaeik who is saying murderer of Grandson of RASOOL ALLAH(SAWW) nauzobilah yazid razi Allah.
condemning the yazidi followers is not secterian.

Mr. Bill you have qoute the Farman of IMAM(A.S) but Taqwah is not that you are seeing in evil cleric zakir nalaik.

This is not shia-sunni fight, that is fight with takfiris who think every one is doing haram and bidat except them and must be wajib al qatal.
For the sake of their rule they spread this fitna outside their country.

are all the deobandies/wahabies/salfies takfiries?
what will you call that iranian officer arrested by locals financeing and helping shias to kill their brothern(if you think them ur brothers?)....
what will you call those who drained blood of muslims to give it to Mujahideen of Iran fighting iraq and that to with sirenges?
what will you call those ayatullahs rapeing muslim girls because they were called kafirs due to their lack of support to revolution
what will you call people like mir jaffer and mir sadiq

come on each sect have their share of YAZEEDIES and KHARJIES

and i call you if you are your self follower of IMAM E PAK then why you dont act on his sunnah

WAMA ALINA ILL LAL BALAGH UL MOBEEN

WA TASIMU BI HABALILLAH HE JAMIAAUM WALA TAFARAQU

 

[waraich66]

Source of funding for salfi/wahabi/najdi/deobandi madressa in Pakistan and for terrorist are not different.
One side they are sourcing for Manpower training in madrresas and other sides for their ammunition and daily/monthly expenses.
Bacha baghal mein dhandora saher mein.

one day we would learn this reality likes going ones which we had ignore in past.

Who is responsible to use these madrasah for jehad in Kashmir and Afghanistan?

Zia regime was giving money to all these madrsah operators to provide force for jehad in Kashmir and Afghanistan .

Now we are getting fruit of our past mistakes.We should blame these different fiqa of islam , all fiqa are on right faith , actually different rulers misused students or molvi of different fiqa for their personal benefits.

 

[EjazR]

Source of funding for salfi/wahabi/najdi/deobandi madressa in Pakistan and for terrorist are not different.
One side they are sourcing for Manpower training in madrresas and other sides for their ammunition and daily/monthly expenses.
Bacha baghal mein dhandora saher mein.

one day we would learn this reality likes going ones which we had ignore in past.

Deoband ulema across the board have unanimously declared fatwas against terrorism. The ones that have not done so are part of the establishment that thrives on the "Jihadi" industry where they get donations, public support as well as politcal representation.

Generalising like that is just as naive and illogical as saying all terrorists are muslims.

P.S.: There is no such thing as najdi. When you say wahabi you cover najdi and you are just repeating yourself

 

[fatman17]

Editorial: Mystery of Taliban funds

The US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Mr Richard Holbrooke, says that Taliban militants are receiving more funding from their sympathisers abroad than from Afghanistan’s illegal drug trade. This statement contradicts the sole Pakistani source that has been forthcoming on the subject: Governor NWFP Mr Owais Ghani thinks that the Taliban in FATA and other tribal areas are spending a budget of Rs 14 billion annually, and the money comes, primarily, from drugs smuggling from Afghanistan.

Mr Holbrooke says: “More money is coming from the Gulf than is coming from the drug trade to the Taliban”. He didn’t say it but he must mean: Iran, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq. He is clearly relying on what NATO military officials in Afghanistan think: the Taliban raise USD60-100 million a year from the trade in illegal narcotics. He says: “What I believe happens is that the Taliban fund local operations in the Pashtun belt out of drug money, but the overall effort gets massive amounts of money from outside Afghanistan”.

He thinks the governments in the Gulf are not involved, but that sympathisers from all over the world are — “with the bulk of it appearing to come from the Gulf”. When a Pakistani representative says the Taliban are getting drug money there are layers of meaning in it. First of all, it is a matter of record that during the Taliban rule in Afghanistan, the militia had successfully curbed poppy cultivation in many parts of the country under their control. The arrival of the Americans in Afghanistan has strengthened the warlords and their “business” of poppy cultivation in the country. What is also on record is the fact that the family of the Afghan president Mr Karzai is involved in the drug trade.

The fact is that the insurgency is very likely to have multiple sources of funding, not just one. Not even one source which caters to the bulk of funds being used to sustain the insurgency and terrorist operations across the region. It is difficult to estimate how much of the money is coming from what source. What makes eminent sense though is to have more than one channel to ensure that the supply doesn’t dry out if one particular source is detected.

Also, we may be forgetting Al Qaeda in all this. Al Qaeda has its old “gold stream” coming into Pakistan and Afghanistan from the UAE in general and Dubai in particular. It started with the purchase of gold and diamonds all over the world — Aafiya Siddiqi was allegedly a part of that network — and then converting them into whatever currency was needed in the area of operation. The half a million dollars supposed to have been spent on the 9/11 operation had allegedly gone to the US from Dubai via Pakistan. Carrying large amounts of currency on flights to and from the UAE is more dangerous than carrying gold. And the institution of hawala is not dead yet.

One cannot ignore the “income” the Taliban count on through criminal activities. Not only do they allow criminal groups to kidnap people for huge ransoms, they levy their own taxes and “protection money” in the areas where they have replaced the writ of the state. And that includes Peshawar itself where the Governor NWFP has his residence. One reason the “emirate” took shape under Baitullah Mehsud was the need to create his own source of revenue through taxing the transporters of the area. Warlord Fazlullah was tolerated by the Taliban and Al Qaeda even when he became “excessive” — which finally led to his ouster from Swat — because he had a good source of revenue from the state-owned emerald mines he had taken over.

Opposition to the Taliban among the local influential groups in Pakistan has grown because of the need of the Taliban to extort money from them to make up the funds for the purchase of weapons and explosives, paying off its foot-soldiers and compensating the families of the “martyr” Taliban.

http://www.thedailytimes.com.pk

 

[Spring Onion]

Editorial: Mystery of Taliban funds

Pakistan has grown because of the need of the Taliban to extort money from them to make up the funds for the purchase of weapons and explosives, paying off its foot-soldiers and compensating the families of the “martyr” Taliban.

http://www.thedailytimes.com.pk

And who are selling these weapons and explosives to these terrorists ? They have one of the most sophisticated communication equipment besides weapons and other material.