Taliban more like gangsters than leaders, UN report states

[Al-Afghani]

The Taliban are increasingly acting more like gangsters than a “government in waiting,” United Nations experts monitoring sanctions against the Islamic fundamentalist insurgents said in a report circulated Monday.

The panel of experts said the Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, appear to be increasing their criminal activity. That includes narcotics trafficking, illicit mining, extortion for using roads and kidnapping for ransom.

“The scale and depth of this co-operation is new, and builds on decades of interaction between the Taliban and others involved in criminal behaviour,” the panel said in a report to the UN Security Council.

The experts said this new trend “has real consequences for peace and security in Afghanistan” because it encourages Taliban members reaping the greatest financial benefits “to oppose any meaningful process of reconciliation with the new government.”

President Ashraf Ghani has said he said he wants to bring peace to Afghanistan after more than 30 years of continuous war. He is trying to isolate the Taliban and bring them to the negotiating table.

The panel urged the Security Council to intensify its use of sanctions “to expose and disrupt Taliban involvement in, and links to, criminal activity.”

While donations from outside benefactors play a role in the Taliban’s finances, the experts said it generates more assets from criminal activities. These include cultivating opium poppies and producing and transporting narcotics, investing in Afghan companies, money-laundering operations, kidnapping for ransom, extorting Afghan businesses and illegally exploiting natural resources.

The report identified a number of alleged Taliban traffickers who tap into the supply chain at every stage of the narcotics trade.

It said the Taliban continues to mine onyx in marble-rich southern Helmand province and it extorts around $1 million (U.S.) annually from individuals who want to exploit lapis lazuli mines in Badakhshan province. The group also demands about 15 per cent of total proceeds, which could be as high as $16 million annually, for providing “security” and facilitating illegal ruby mining in Jagdalak in Kabul province.

Since 2005, ransoms paid to the Taliban for international hostages are estimated to amount to at least $16 million, the panel said, although the Taliban has claimed to have received more than $20 million.

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/20...rt-states.html

@Bengal_Tiger

[Khostai]

Wait till you see taliban lovers claiming this as propaganda.

[Badlun]

I am sure in Hilmand Taliban can use such practices to grab money but how come in Badakhshan which is a Tajik area? Tajiks are wise people and they will never let Taliban to dominate their area and resources.

I wish we could have a realistic survey done by Afghan experts to gauge the real influence of Taliban in Afghanistan. Where they control and what they control. I see all provincial capitals are under government control but some pockets may be controlled by these hooligans.

[DSM0305]

I am sure in Hilmand Taliban can use such practices to grab money but how come in Badakhshan which is a Tajik area? Tajiks are wise people and they will never let Taliban to dominate their area and resources.

I wish we could have a realistic survey done by Afghan experts to gauge the real influence of Taliban in Afghanistan. Where they control and what they control. I see all provincial capitals are under government control but some pockets may be controlled by these hooligans.

Tajiks aren't as smart as you think. They missed countless occasions to grab the power in Afghanistan. They think by demonizing/insult Pashtuns, they will somehow grab the power, yet it had the complete opposite effect.
In Afghanistan, Pashtun identity was very limited to non-existent. They were Pashtuns only in name. Talks about Pashto and its influence was non existent. It was there as national language just for symbolic purpose. No one was demanding Pashto in media or school. No one was complaining that everyone spoke Dari. The entire government and military was filled with Tajiks.

Were Tajiks satisfied? No, they weren't. Instead of continuing that road and eventually turn Afghanistan to their liking, they rather turn Pashtuns into some sort rival. They started to point fingers and insult/criticize Pashtuns. They started to follow ethnic fascism, which eventually evoke Pashtun sentiment amongst Pashtun themselves. Tajiks made a big deal out of something extremely small. A simple word as university turned into an ethnic outcry. When Pashtun saw Tajiks ethnic centric behavior, the Pashtun themselves started to think on similar pattern.

The cultural and linguistic influence Pashto have today, they never had in the past. All due to Tajiks ethnic centric politics, and meaningless Pashtun bashings. If they stayed in more neutral role toward Pasthuns, Tajiks today could have enjoyed the Afghan throne all by themselves. Tajiks bashing against Pashtun did nothing, but remove the positive view Pashtuns had regarding Tajiks. Tajiks basically limited their own influence.

[Badlun]

Tajiks aren't as smart as you think. They missed countless occasions to grab the power in Afghanistan. They think by demonizing/insult Pashtuns, they will somehow grab the power, yet it had the complete opposite effect.
In Afghanistan, Pashtun identity was very limited to non-existent. They were Pashtuns only in name. Talks about Pashto and its influence was non existent. It was there as national language just for symbolic purpose. No one was demanding Pashto in media or school. No one was complaining that everyone spoke Dari. The entire government and military was filled with Tajiks.

Were Tajiks satisfied? No, they weren't. Instead of continuing that road and eventually turn Afghanistan to their liking, they rather turn Pashtuns into some sort rival. They started to point fingers and insult/criticize Pashtuns. They started to follow ethnic fascism, which eventually evoke Pashtun sentiment amongst Pashtun themselves. Tajiks made a big deal out of something extremely small. A simple word as university turned into an ethnic outcry. When Pashtun saw Tajiks ethnic centric behavior, the Pashtun themselves started to think on similar pattern.

The cultural and linguistic influence Pashto have today, they never had in the past. All due to Tajiks ethnic centric politics, and meaningless Pashtun bashings. If they stayed in more neutral role toward Pasthuns, Tajiks today could have enjoyed the Afghan throne all by themselves. Tajiks bashing against Pashtun did nothing, but remove the positive view Pashtuns had regarding Tajiks. Tajiks basically limited their own influence.

Very good analysis. I agree that Pashto or Pashtun nationalism in Afghanistan is very recent an done factor may be the Tajiks ethnic centric policies. Pashtuns themselves like Zahirshah needed Pashto translators for talking to Pashtuns of Eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan. Now at least our presidents speak Pashto publicly.

At the same time one has to salute to Tajiks that on one name they fight this much. You would see Persian in Peshawar in Pashtun dominated Peshawar and Jalalabad. And I especially salute Tajiks as they do not harbor Taliban and Taliban has very little influence in non Pashtun Afghanistan.

[khushal]

The UN reputation for honest analysis went out the door when they reported ISIS was performing female circumcision:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/24/isis-deny-ordering-fgm-girls-mosul

But the fact is that the gangsters are all over the country and the biggest gangsters are in the Afghan gov. The Talibans role is greatly exaggerated.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/afghanistan-garden-of-empire-americas-multibillion-dollar-opium-harvest/5324196

The total revenue generated by opiates within Afghanistan is about $3 billion per year. According to UNODC data, the Taliban get only about 5 percent of this sum. Farmers selling their opium harvest to traffickers get 20 percent. And the remaining 75 percent? Al-Qaeda? No: the report specifies that it “does not appear to have a direct role in the Afghan opiates trade,” although it may participate in “low-level drugs and/or arms smuggling” along the Pakistani border. Instead, the remaining 75 percent is captured by traffickers, government officials, the police, and local and regional power brokers – in short, many of the groups now supported or tolerated by the United States and NATO are important actors in the drug trade.

[MENTION=1201]Toramana[/MENTION], this is not to defend the Taliban, but to reveal the facts that the Afghan Gov and its foreign creators is the problem behind the instability that is spilling Afghan Blood, the people you claim to love. If you want to find a solution, we must know the truth.

[khushal]

Very good analysis. I agree that Pashto or Pashtun nationalism in Afghanistan is very recent an done factor may be the Tajiks ethnic centric policies. Pashtuns themselves like Zahirshah needed Pashto translators for talking to Pashtuns of Eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan. Now at least our presidents speak Pashto publicly.

At the same time one has to salute to Tajiks that on one name they fight this much. You would see Persian in Peshawar in Pashtun dominated Peshawar and Jalalabad. And I especially salute Tajiks as they do not harbor Taliban and Taliban has very little influence in non Pashtun Afghanistan.

While Tajik Nationalist leaders can rally their people behind what ver agenda they want since their society has feudal structures. Pashtun nationalist leaders don't have that same luxury. The vast majority of Pashtuns in Afghanistan are living in tribal structures and they can not be rallied under such a platform. Pashtuns nationalists leaders are weak because they can not rally their people. The unifying factor for Pashtuns in Afghanistan is their faith which is why the Mullah can easily rally them. People like you and DSM have no forethought or vision. Anyone with any competence would easily see that you will lose which s why you hate the Mullah because they can do what you can not, they are working with what is there while you are working with what you think should be there. You live in fantasyland.

[DSM0305]

While Tajik Nationalist leaders can rally their people behind what ver agenda they want since their society has feudal structures. Pashtun nationalist leaders don't have that same luxury. The vast majority of Pashtuns in Afghanistan are living in tribal structures and they can not be rallied under such a platform. Pashtuns nationalists leaders are weak because they can not rally their people. The unifying factor for Pashtuns in Afghanistan is their faith which is why the Mullah can easily rally them. People like you and DSM have no forethought or vision. Anyone with any competence would easily see that you will lose which s why you hate the Mullah because they can do what you can not, they are working with what is there while you are working with what you think should be there. You live in fantasyland.

One can clearly see that you have never been to Afghanistan. The tribal society is highly exaggerated both in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Tribal society is limited to personal life/social aspect, no more and no less. Even the most isolated Pashtun village have a high grasp of the political aspect of Afghanistan.
Let me make it clear, the Pashtun tribal life is far from the tribal life the native Americans had. I know you live and is born in the US. And from the looks of it, when you see ''tribal'' you all of sudden think of native Americans.
If one had to compare the tribal structure of Pashtuns, then the most comparable would be the Arabic tribes. Its not quite the same, but a lot closer and comparable than old native Americans(which you compare them with)

And I have no idea where you have heard a mullah rally Pashtuns from, but that idea is as far fetched as it can be. Pashtuns either listen to their tribal elder, or the local warlord(yes, Pashtun have warlords too). No different from Tajiks political structure.

Mullahs have no direct political control, or some kind of old days tribal horn alert system. What people complain about Mullahs isn't their ''rally power'', because their rally influence is as much as 2 year old rallying an army. Their complain is directed toward what they call brainwashing. Women shouldn't go to school, stop watching TV etc.

One can clearly see that you have never even stepped on Afghan soil. All your ''arguments'' is based off stuff you read in the internet, and then you make assumptions out of it.

I highly recommend that you travel to Afghanistan, and live there for a few years. You have to at least understand the basic stuffs regarding Afghanistan.

[Khostai]

One can clearly see that you have never been to Afghanistan. The tribal society is highly exaggerated both in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Tribal society is limited to personal life/social aspect, no more and no less. Even the most isolated Pashtun village have a high grasp of the political aspect of Afghanistan.
Let me make it clear, the Pashtun tribal life is far from the tribal life the native Americans had. I know you live and is born in the US. And from the looks of it, when you see ''tribal'' you all of sudden think of native Americans.
If one had to compare the tribal structure of Pashtuns, then the most comparable would be the Arabic tribes. Its not quite the same, but a lot closer and comparable than old native Americans(which you compare them with)

And I have no idea where you have heard a mullah rally Pashtuns from, but that idea is as far fetched as it can be. Pashtuns either listen to their tribal elder, or the local warlord(yes, Pashtun have warlords too). No different from Tajiks political structure.

Mullahs have no direct political control, or some kind of old days tribal horn alert system. What people complain about Mullahs isn't their ''rally power'', because their rally influence is as much as 2 year old rallying an army. Their complain is directed toward what they call brainwashing. Women shouldn't go to school, stop watching TV etc.

One can clearly see that you have never even stepped on Afghan soil. All your ''arguments'' is based off stuff you read in the internet, and then you make assumptions out of it.

I highly recommend that you travel to Afghanistan, and live there for a few years. You have to at least understand the basic stuffs regarding Afghanistan.

So true. This guy is clearly western born, he only heard about Afghanistan from his parents stories. I bet his parents were also young when they left Afghanistan. He is the only one that is out of touch with the reality of Afghanistan.

[Al-Afghani]

The UN reputation for honest analysis went out the door when they reported ISIS was performing female circumcision:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/24/isis-deny-ordering-fgm-girls-mosul

But the fact is that the gangsters are all over the country and the biggest gangsters are in the Afghan gov. The Talibans role is greatly exaggerated.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/afghanistan-garden-of-empire-americas-multibillion-dollar-opium-harvest/5324196

@Toramana, this is not to defend the Taliban, but to reveal the facts that the Afghan Gov and its foreign creators is the problem behind the instability that is spilling Afghan Blood, the people you claim to love. If you want to find a solution, we must know the truth.

Globalresearch.ca is a well known conspiracy theory website.

[Badlun]

While Tajik Nationalist leaders can rally their people behind what ver agenda they want since their society has feudal structures. Pashtun nationalist leaders don't have that same luxury. The vast majority of Pashtuns in Afghanistan are living in tribal structures and they can not be rallied under such a platform. Pashtuns nationalists leaders are weak because they can not rally their people. The unifying factor for Pashtuns in Afghanistan is their faith which is why the Mullah can easily rally them. People like you and DSM have no forethought or vision. Anyone with any competence would easily see that you will lose which s why you hate the Mullah because they can do what you can not, they are working with what is there while you are working with what you think should be there. You live in fantasyland.

Why faith is the unifying factor only for Pashtuns , why not for others like Tajiks and Punjabis? Tajiks and Punjabis are equally Muslims , predominantly Hanafi Sunni Muslims.

Why Mullah is now such an important figure in Pashtun society only? Mullah was not important before 1979 and his only task was to manage the pure religious spiritual affairs and mosque related stuff but after the invasion of the Saudi Islamism , Mullah is now such a towering personality in Pashtun society.
Our task is to sensitize Pashtuns to de-link Mullah from political and other secular affairs and to show him his real place which is mosque not Hujra.

[khushal]

Why faith is the unifying factor only for Pashtuns , why not for others like Tajiks and Punjabis? Tajiks and Punjabis are equally Muslims , predominantly Hanafi Sunni Muslims.

Why Mullah is now such an important figure in Pashtun society only? Mullah was not important before 1979 and his only task was to manage the pure religious spiritual affairs and mosque related stuff but after the invasion of the Saudi Islamism , Mullah is now such a towering personality in Pashtun society.
Our task is to sensitize Pashtuns to de-link Mullah from political and other secular affairs and to show him his real place which is mosque not Hujra.

When I talk of "Mullah," I am referring to a symbol of what the Mullah represents, not an actual person because Mullahs are sometimes driven out or killed if they speak against the atmosphere of peoples opinion. The mullah represents conservative values and these values do have influence in Panjab and Tajik areas as well but they are more influential in Pashtun society especially in the tribal belts of FATA and Afghanistan because the people live in a tribal egalitarian society where power rests with the individual .

The Elitistic Feudal structures of Tajik and Panjab which gives power(wealth) to landowners(feudal lords) and the people that live on their land are basically their servants. Its easy to buy off an elitists feudal society since you have to buy one person and he will deliver all the people that live on their land since he basically owns them, while Tajik and Panjab people are still conservative, the landowner still has enormous influence over them and he has disarmed his servants.

In a egalitarian tribal society where an individual is his own master and everyone has arms, its very hard to change the conservative nature of these people since they will revolt and violence would be the result which will only deepen their conservative values. So your methods actually have the opposite effect.

This is also the reason why the Brits had more trouble in Afghanistan than all of India and Afghanistan has about 1% of the Indian subcontinent's population.
Here is a great Yale paper on it:

http://www.yale.edu/agrarianstudies/colloqpapers/19barfield.pdf

About your history lesson, your manipulating history. The symbolic "Mullah" always had influence in the rural areas, its just that the Daud/Zahir Gov stayed out of the people affairs because they did not have the means to interfere with them. But once Russia influence went out of control meaning once the PDPA took over, everything changed. The gov started forcing people in the rural areas to accept a so called "modern communistic Russian" way of life whether they liked it or not. This is when the symbolic "Mullah" lashed out with fury. This forcing people to live in a way that they were not used to that contradicted with the conservative values of the people created instability and killed 2 million people, forced half the population to Pakistan(and Pakistan used those refugees for their own interests). When an environment is introduced to war and violence, people became more conservative then they were before the introduction of violence.

[khushal]

One can clearly see that you have never been to Afghanistan. The tribal society is highly exaggerated both in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Tribal society is limited to personal life/social aspect, no more and no less. Even the most isolated Pashtun village have a high grasp of the political aspect of Afghanistan.
Let me make it clear, the Pashtun tribal life is far from the tribal life the native Americans had. I know you live and is born in the US. And from the looks of it, when you see ''tribal'' you all of sudden think of native Americans.
If one had to compare the tribal structure of Pashtuns, then the most comparable would be the Arabic tribes. Its not quite the same, but a lot closer and comparable than old native Americans(which you compare them with)

Tribal does not mean primitive, its how a society is structured, how each person looks onto another in the society he/she lives in and how power and wealth is distributed. Pashtuns are the largest segmentary lineage ethnic group in the world which is another way of saying tribal society:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmentary_lineage

And I have no idea where you have heard a mullah rally Pashtuns from, but that idea is as far fetched as it can be. Pashtuns either listen to their tribal elder, or the local warlord(yes, Pashtun have warlords too). No different from Tajiks political structure.

Mullahs have no direct political control, or some kind of old days tribal horn alert system. What people complain about Mullahs isn't their ''rally power'', because their rally influence is as much as 2 year old rallying an army. Their complain is directed toward what they call brainwashing. Women shouldn't go to school, stop watching TV etc.

One can clearly see that you have never even stepped on Afghan soil. All your ''arguments'' is based off stuff you read in the internet, and then you make assumptions out of it.

I highly recommend that you travel to Afghanistan, and live there for a few years. You have to at least understand the basic stuffs regarding Afghanistan.

Well, the Mullah on says what the people want to hear, he only survives in the conservative atmosphere that he lives in just like an american politician can no longer be against same sex marriage because the political atmosphere in america no longer allows it. If a mullah in an Afghan village says to the people, OK lets have women wear skirts from now on. What do you think will happen to him. He has no control, he just works within the atmosphere of the peoples mindset. The people are conservative so therefore the mullah is also.

I have answered your other points on my response to Badlun above.

[khushal]

So true. This guy is clearly western born, he only heard about Afghanistan from his parents stories. I bet his parents were also young when they left Afghanistan. He is the only one that is out of touch with the reality of Afghanistan.

I am the only one who provides sources while the rest of you blabber with no logic.

[Khostai]

I am the only one who provides sources while the rest of you blabber with no logic.

shady conspiracy websites are not legitimate sourcess. My dear peanut.