Afghanistan: Nut Jihad: Taliban Makes Millions from Pistachio Farms

Mar 26, 2018 | David Brennan, Newsweek
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Heroin production, arms smuggling, kidnappings; the Taliban funds its ongoing war in Afghanistan with a wide range of illegal activities, putting its war-footing fund-raising ahead of any moral, or indeed religious, concerns. A less obvious, but still lucrative, source of revenue has been brought to light by the Institute For War & Peace Reporting (IWPR): pistachio farming. An IWPR investigation into Afghanistan’s pistachio forests have found that armed gangs and Taliban fighters control the vast majority of nut production, earning millions of dollars each year, which is then put towards fighting U.S., coalition and Afghan forces.