posted by Christopher W. Holton
Reports say Taliban’s incomes have increased this year against the previous years.
A report by the BBC shows that Taliban annually earns more than $1.5 billion from drug dealing, illegal mining, collecting electricity bills and financial support from a number of countries.
The report said that this year Taliban’s financial resources and the money they get from these resources have increased against previous years.
The report says Taliban yearly earns from $100 million to $400 million from drugs and taxes; $50 million from mines extractions and $500 million from Iran, Pakistan, Russia and Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar which are the biggest supporters of Taliban.
“Private citizens from Pakistan and several Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar are considered the largest individual contributors.”
For long time SFW readers, it comes as no surprise, that the Taliban are partially sustained by direct funding from citizens of our “allies in the war on terrorism,” i.e. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar.
Shia Iran funds the Sunni Salafi Taliban, which flies in the face of so much conventional wisdom in the media and among Leftist NGOs.
Finally, the BBC reports that Russia is funding the Taliban. It’s worth noting that the Taliban were for the most part not part of the anti-Soviet insurgency in the 1980s. Taliban members were largely in Pakistan and India during the Soviet occupation and mainly took advantage of the power vacuum after the Soviet withdrawal. So they may not regard Russians as an arch enemy, especially if the Russians are sending them money. The most significant aspect of Russian funding of the Taliban is that it is almost certainly aimed at the US.
