Taliban leaders, seeking international acceptance after seizing power in Afghanistan, have told farmers to stop growing opium poppies, residents of some of the major poppy-growing areas say . This has caused crude opium prices to skyrocket across the country.
In recent days, Taliban representatives have begun to say rallies of villagers in the southern province of Kandahar, one of the country’s main opium-producing regions, that harvesting – a crucial part of the local economy – would now be banned. .
This followed a statement by Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid at an August 18 press conference in Kabul that the country’s new rulers would not allow drug trafficking. At the time, Mr Mujahid did not provide details on how the Islamist group intends to enforce the ban.
Local farmers in Kandahar, Uruzgan and Helman provinces said raw opium prices have tripled, from about $ 70 to about $ 200 per kilogram, due to uncertainty about future production. In the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, the price of opium has doubled, local residents said. Raw opium is transformed into heroin.
The Taliban have long been a major beneficiary of the narcotics industry, using the drug business taxation to fund its 20-year insurgency, Western governments say. Afghanistan accounts for 80% of the world’s illicit opiate exports and the poppy planting season begins after about a month.