A New Look at the Af/Pak Crisis By Douglas Farah

A New Look at the Af/Pak Crisis
By Douglas Farah

Now that the Afghan/Pakistan crisis if front and center, and the ties between organized crime and the funding of radical Islamist movements are clear, it would be well to understand the origins of this emerging threat and the magnitude of the danger.

One of the best at doing that is a new book by Gretchen Peters, Seeds of Terror: How Heroin is Bankrolling The Taliban and al Qaeda.

I have mentioned the book before, but it is hitting stores this week and provides a clear-eyed view of how we got to this point, and how international heroin trafficking is at the root of the new wave of Taliban advances.

Ms. Peters is a journalist, not an ideologue, and uses her 10 years of experience on the ground in the region to walk readers through myriad ties between the Taliban, al Qaeda and the heroin trade that has allowed the resurgence and spread of a group that was on the verge of complete defeat by the end of 2001. Now they are knocking on the doors of the capital of nuclear state.

It is the best case study to date of the criminal-terrorist nexus that is still so often dismissed in intelligence and senior policy making circles.

The result is not a pretty picture, particularly of the corruption in the Karzai administration, the lack of real progress in dealing with the deep seated social issues and poverty and the overall attractiveness of the drug trade in such dire conditions.

At the same time, the Jamestown Foundation notes the Europol report on the growing connection between the Afghanistan/Pakistan region and the Islamist terrorist threat in Europe. My full blog is here.
May 11, 2009 11:43 AM Link http://counterterrorismblog.org/2009/05/a_new_look_at_the_afpak_crisis.php