From Where Terrorists Have Been Getting Money And Support?
Muhammad Khurshid
July 31, 2009
From where terrorists or Taliban have been getting money and support? Some this question is being asked by the people of Pakistan. The special envoy of United States has disclosed that terrorists have been getting support from Gulf states. He may be right, but there are evidences that terrorists have been getting support and money from the United States. The United States has provided justification to terrorists for carrying out their terrorist activities. Actually the US top decision makers have been using Taliban for occupying Afghanistan and tribal areas. The rulers of Pakistan have been playing into the hands of their US masters. There are several opinions about the financial support to Taliban, but it is the right time that the question should be probed and answered.
According to an editorial comment of a leading newspaper of Pakistan, war-fighting is an expensive business, and every bullet costs money. We have a defence budget and assorted parcels of aid to pay for the war against the Taliban we are currently engaged in; but the Taliban have to find other ways of paying for their armaments and materiel. Some of it they acquire by old-fashioned thievery but recent years have seen a much greater diversity and complexity in their funding arrangements. Richard Holbrooke speaking to journalists in the NATO headquarters in Brussels said that their most lucrative source of income was money donated by sympathisers outside of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and that it was a mistake to assume that the bulk of their income was derived from drug money. The money was coming from the Gulf States, including those to whom we are closely allied, but was coming from individuals and small organisations, not from the governments of Gulf States – a point Holbrooke was keen to emphasise given the sensitivity of what he was saying. It was also coming from Western Europe, where there is a large Muslim community many of whom are sympathetic to the Taliban cause. The manufacture and sale of illegal drugs still pulls in a significant sum -- $60-$100 million a year. It was Holbrooke's opinion (and he offered no supporting evidence) that the drug money funds local operations in the Pashtun tribal belt whilst the money raised elsewhere funded other operations.
Nobody has any idea how much the Taliban raise from their sympathisers, but if it is as stated to be in excess of their drugs income, then they have a minimum war-chest of $120-$200 million, and probably a lot more than that. This is an almost paltry sum when measured against the billions of dollars that the war being fought by ourselves and the Americans and their allies. The sum may be small by international standards but the Taliban spend it very differently, buying 'penny packets' of weaponry where they can rather than commissioning large supplier contracts. The money they receive is also very difficult to track as much of it moves through informal systems of transfer that have been established for hundreds of years, which work on trust and word of mouth. In an age where satellite intercepts are the norm rather than the exception, trying to track the Taliban's money is like trying to find a needle in a haystack – but find it we must.
The End
According to an editorial comment of a leading newspaper of Pakistan, war-fighting is an expensive business, and every bullet costs money. We have a defence budget and assorted parcels of aid to pay for the war against the Taliban we are currently engaged in; but the Taliban have to find other ways of paying for their armaments and materiel. Some of it they acquire by old-fashioned thievery but recent years have seen a much greater diversity and complexity in their funding arrangements. Richard Holbrooke speaking to journalists in the NATO headquarters in Brussels said that their most lucrative source of income was money donated by sympathisers outside of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and that it was a mistake to assume that the bulk of their income was derived from drug money. The money was coming from the Gulf States, including those to whom we are closely allied, but was coming from individuals and small organisations, not from the governments of Gulf States – a point Holbrooke was keen to emphasise given the sensitivity of what he was saying. It was also coming from Western Europe, where there is a large Muslim community many of whom are sympathetic to the Taliban cause. The manufacture and sale of illegal drugs still pulls in a significant sum -- $60-$100 million a year. It was Holbrooke's opinion (and he offered no supporting evidence) that the drug money funds local operations in the Pashtun tribal belt whilst the money raised elsewhere funded other operations.
Nobody has any idea how much the Taliban raise from their sympathisers, but if it is as stated to be in excess of their drugs income, then they have a minimum war-chest of $120-$200 million, and probably a lot more than that. This is an almost paltry sum when measured against the billions of dollars that the war being fought by ourselves and the Americans and their allies. The sum may be small by international standards but the Taliban spend it very differently, buying 'penny packets' of weaponry where they can rather than commissioning large supplier contracts. The money they receive is also very difficult to track as much of it moves through informal systems of transfer that have been established for hundreds of years, which work on trust and word of mouth. In an age where satellite intercepts are the norm rather than the exception, trying to track the Taliban's money is like trying to find a needle in a haystack – but find it we must.
The End
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