Monday

The Taliban's Heroin Ploy

As the U.S. postpones a decision on Afghanistan, Gerald Posner reports on a new secret weapon in the arsenal of the Taliban and Al Qaeda: getting the Army addicted to their cheap heroin.

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10/19/2009

The Taliban in Their Own Words



"Once proud Taliban mullahs and fighters changed the way they dressed so they wouldn't be recognized. No one wanted to be identified as a Talib. Friends and relatives who had respected me while I was a commander now turned away. I had no money or job. I moved my family to a village in Punjab, far from Afghanistan, to become a day laborer, but I was a failure at it. I couldn't speak the local language, and no one would hire me. So I returned to Peshawar and started selling vegetables from a basket in the market. I began making money. But I couldn't get over the Taliban's collapse, the death of my men. My wife said I was crying in my sleep. I went to a doctor, who gave me some medicine. I was so distracted that when a customer would ask me for potatoes, I'd give him tomatoes."

Maulvi Abdul Rehman Akhundzada , 40, commanded a 400-man Taliban unit in northern Afghanistan when the U.S. bombing campaign began, ended up selling potatoes in Pakistan in 2003, and now commands 50 insurgents operating in three provinces.

From The Taliban in Their Own Words by Sami Yousafzai and Ron Moreau

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9/28/2009