To Defeat Terrorism In Afghanistan, Start With Opium Crops in Nangarhar Province

Mar 26, 2017 | Anders Corr
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This month, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed an attack on a military hospital in Kabul, killing more than 40 civilians and defenseless patients. The attack came two days after the Afghan military announced that its month-long “Shaheen 25” operations had killed 250 Islamic State militants in the terrorist organization’s Afghan stronghold of Nangarhar Province. Two weeks ago, an Islamic State improvised explosive device (IED) injured three U.S. soldiers in Jalalabad, the capital city of Nangarhar. Last week, the U.S. military in Afghanistan vowed to defeat Islamic State in area by the end of 2017. Military strikes and raids against Islamic State and the Taliban are needed, but when militants are captured or killed, these terrorist groups can quickly hire more from their compatriots across the border in Pakistan. To end the cycle of Islamic State, Taliban, and other terrorist violence in Afghanistan requires constriction of terrorist financing, including through both demand and supply interventions against drug revenues that in part finance terrorism.