Afghanistan’s Taliban appeal for donations

Western, Afghan intelligence: most Taliban funds generated from Afghanistan’s multi-billion dollar opium production.


Afp April 18, 2012

KABUL: Afghanistan’s Taliban appealed Wednesday to the Muslim world for donations for their insurgency in a rare move that analysts said was part of their media war.

Complete with telephone hotlines and email addresses, the appeal was posted on a Taliban website asking Muslims worldwide to help the rebels in what they say is a “Jihad”, or a holy war, against non-Muslim “invaders”.

The Taliban were in power between 1996 and 2001 but were toppled in a US-led invasion after refusing to turn in Osama Bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda wanted by Washington for the September 11, 2001 attacks on US cities.

Since being ousted, the remnants of the militia have waged a bloody insurgency.

“In the light of Islamic sharia, all Muslims everywhere are duty-bound to join the Jihad with money and soul,” the militant group said.

The Taliban “are still waging legitimate Jihad single-handedly with mere help from common sincere Islam-loving masses and is in dire need of financial assistance from the Muslim brothers worldwide for its military and non-military expenditures,” it added.

The appeal appeared to be part of the rebels’ “media war”, a move to show their campaign is supported by the masses, said analyst Abdul Waheed Wafa.

“I think it’s part of the Taliban propaganda war,” Wafa, director of the Afghanistan Centre, a research body at Kabul University, told AFP.

“They are trying to show that their Jihad is supported by the people and their funds are coming from the people,” Wafa added.

According to Western and Afghan intelligence most Taliban funds are generated from Afghanistan’s multi-billion dollar opium production, the raw material for making heroin.

Afghanistan produces more than 90 percent of the world’s opium.

The nation’s Western-backed government also accuses neighbouring Pakistan’s intelligence agencies and radical groups of funding the Taliban insurgency, mostly a campaign of suicide attacks and other bombings.

Pakistan denies the allegations.

COMMENTS (1)

shazada zahid mahmoud malik loan | 11 years ago | Reply

Well this needs to be carefully analysed by the Western, Indian and Israeli spy agencies in case this is a false propaganda exercise on behalf of the Taliban. It may be that the CIA is trying to dishearten the Afghan Free Army to show that they are bankrupt. The CIA, MOSSAD and the Indian spy agencies have been accelerating their assaults against Pakistan and Afghanistan given that the 2014 is fast approaching. The Imperialist forces led by the occupiers of the “Land of the Sioux” Indians are insisting on leaving gracefully yet they have been soundly defeated by the bare-footed rag-tag Afghan Free Army. The Afghan Free Army has not asked for any foreign assistance, monetary or material.

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