The Taliban has been a constant source of insecurity in Afghanistan since the early 1990s when the group first emerged to bring peace and Islamic rule to the war-torn country. Having established their Islamic Emirate by 2000, the group turned Afghanistan into a haven for Islamist jihadist from around the world which included Usama Bin Laden, the mastermind of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Upon the intervention of the international community in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, the group had to go underground to be able to operate and challenge the new Afghanistan government. The change in the nature of the Taliban and its mode of operation required and reflected a change in the types and sources of the group’s finances. The Taliban has been successful in bringing about this change which in addition to helping the group to sustain its operations financially, has helped it on other fronts as well. The Taliban’s successful diversification of its sources of income has been instrumental in its ability to maintain a degree of decision making independence, and a higher level of local integration that has in turn contributed to the group’s local popularity and legitimation.
Since the overthrow of the Taliban government in 2001, the group has secured a stable flow of funds from a variety of sources. It has benefited from facilitating and partaking in drug trafficking; it has established a taxation system that collects taxes from the farmers and small business owners within its territory, and it has found private international sponsors in neighboring countries and wealthy Gulf nations. Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence agency (ISI) is another supplier of funds for the Taliban. More surprisingly, however, the US and the international allies in Afghanistan, too, have played an important role in funding the Taliban’s operations by purchasing security from the group for the local projects in the Taliban territory.
Although targeting the vast and varied sources of the Taliban’s estimated annual 2$ billion finances is not easily achievable, there are certain areas that Afghanistan’s international allies could make a difference in this regards. Development of Afghanistan’s infrastructure projects is one such area. Although the Taliban have been the greatest source of concern for Afghanistan’s security, the fact of the matter is that the group and its operations are primarily based in the southern and southwestern parts of the country. Ironically, the bulk of the infrastructure projects after 2001 have disproportionately been focused in those same regions even though the rest of the country suffers from a comparable infrastructure deficit. This pattern has been attributed to the dynamics of the ethnic politics in Afghanistan as the southern and southwestern regions are dominantly populated by Pashtuns who have been dominant in the Afghanistan politics in the past two centuries. For two reasons the international community can play a role in reducing the Taliban’s funds from the development projects in Afghanistan. Firstly, the international donors and supporters can determine where the distribution and investment of infrastructure funds. Secondly, any change in the patterns of infrastructure development in Afghanistan would not have any major adverse effect on the political stability of the country.
Sources consulted:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/world/asia/19taliban.html
http://www.dw.com/en/how-the-taliban-get-their-money/a-18995315
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-v-micallef/how-the-taliban-gets-its_b_8551536.html