(Photo from the BBC)UN: Taliban Could Clear $500M From 2008 Drug Trade
-- The AP
-- The AP
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban and other warlords could clear almost half a billion dollars from Afghanistan's opium trade this year — money that will help finance insurgent attacks, the U.N.'s drug czar said.
Antonio Maria Costa, head of the U.N.'s Office on Drugs and Crime, said the Taliban also appears to be stockpiling the drug to manipulate its price, after several years in which production surpassed world demand.
Afghanistan produces over 90 percent of the world's opium, the raw ingredient for making heroin.
"By year end, warlords, drug lords and insurgents will have extracted almost half a billion dollars of tax revenue from drug farming, production and trafficking," Costa said in a summary of the U.N.'s annual Afghanistan opium survey, published Thursday.
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More News On The Opium Trade In Afghanistan
Opium poppy harvest declines 6% in Afghanistan -- L.A. Times
Sharp drop in Afghan poppy crop -- BBC
U.N. Reports That Taliban Is Stockpiling Opium -- New York Times
NATO countries split on help for Afghan drug war: top UN official -- AFP
Taliban seen earning up to 304 mln pounds from opium -- International Herald Tribune
The Taliban Is a Drug Cartel and Should Be Attacked as Such -- U.S. News And World Report (opinion)