"With respect to the Taliban, the narco dollars are a major if not majority of their funding sources ... add in there as well extortion and kidnapping,...With Al Qaeda I think it is a mixed bag. They draw benefits from the Taliban but they are not relying wholesale on narcotics. They still rely on sympathetic donors and, to a certain extent, charities.'"
The taliban being bankrolled by the heroin trade, extortion, kidnapping, marble and timber isn't exactly news but always worth to point out.
Al Qaida being bankrolled by charities isn't news either but isn't it interesting that the ACLU condemns the Feds targeting islamic charities that transfer money to terrorist organizations? The Toronto Star
Afghanistan produces more opium than any other country in the world. The Taliban charges drug kingpins to move the opium through its territory, for what the United Nations estimates could run upward of $340 million annually.
The Taliban euphemistically refers to extortion money as tolls, taxes or even zakat, the 2.5 per cent donation to charity that Islam requires. A kidnapped Pakistani businessman had to pay more than $140,000 in ransom. When his Taliban captors freed him, he said, they told him, "Think of this as your zakat. Now your place in heaven is guaranteed.''
Money from drugs and criminal gangs make up roughly 85 to 90 per cent of Taliban revenue, estimates John Solomon, a terrorism expert with U.S. Military Academy's Counter Terrorism Center. In Pakistan alone, Owais Ghani, governor of northwest Pakistan, puts the Taliban's annual earnings at roughly $50 million.
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