Obtained Document Shows Taliban Earns Up to 2M Afghanis per Day

The Taliban militant group earns up to two million Afghani from the sources that included narcotics, mines, Usher & Zakat (Islamic taxation), collection of electricity bills, and woods smuggling, according a document obtained by Ariana News.   

The obtained document shows that the Taliban earns revenues via narcotics from 23 provinces in the country, in between five provinces are considered as smuggling areas for the group that include southern parts of Helmand & Kandahar, northeastern parts of Badakhshan and western parts of Farah & Nimruz provinces.

Mines are another lucrative source of funding for the Taliban that includes azure mine in Badakhshan, marbles of Helmand & Kandahar, coal and salt mines in Takhar, Raghistan gold mine and Chromite mines in Logar province.

The government also confirms the Taliban income sources via narcotics and mines, stresses to cut the group’s funding. 

 “Taliban has a lot of incomes via narcotics and mines in the country and it is worrying,” the Deputy Spokesman for the Presidential Palace, Dawa Khan Minapal said.

According to the document, the militant groups in Afghanistan including the Taliban earn about 20 million Afghanis from the mine sources.

A government source on condition of anonymity, meanwhile, told Ariana News that the Taliban collecting more than 600 million Afghanis annually from various sources that include two million Afghanis on average per day.

“We are attempting to reduce the Taliban’s access to these income sources and we have done this up to now,” said Dawlat Waziri, the Defense Ministry Spokesman.

It comes as the Taliban has increased scale of attacks since last year or so, targeting government facilities and military compounds across the country, mostly through costly suicide and car bombings.

By  Shakib Mahmud and Ali Azghari