Opium: Afghanistan’s drug trade that helped fuel the Taliban

Taliban are involved in all facets, from poppy planting, opium extraction, trafficking to charging smugglers export fees.

The United States spent more than $8bn over 15 years on efforts to deprive the Taliban of their profits from Afghanistan’s opium and heroin trade, from poppy eradication to air attacks and raids on suspected labs. That strategy failed. As the US wraps up its longest war, Afghanistan remains the world’s biggest illicit opiate supplier and looks certain to remain so as the Taliban is on the brink of taking power in Kabul, said current and former US and UN officials and experts.