The Taliban were once known for cultivating and trafficking opium. However, under international pressure and by finding global pathways and utilizing contemporary knowledge, this group has found a new path for financing war and repression: first, the production of synthetic drugs and then the systematic plunder of mines in Afghanistan. This change is not a sign of retreat, but evidence of the Taliban’s flexibility in finding new sources to keep their terror machine alive.
Afghanistan is a land with legendary wealth. Estimates put the value of the country’s underground resources between one to three trillion dollars; gold, lithium, lapis lazuli, iron, copper, uranium, and rare metals that could have been the foundation for sustainable development, industrialization, and poverty reduction. But in the hands of the Taliban, this wealth has been turned into its opposite: fuel for war, roots for corruption, and instruments for mafia networks. After the fall of the republic in 2021, the process of plundering Afghanistan’s resources has intensified. Figures like Bashir Noorzai, the famous drug trafficker, are now at the heart of mining contracts; a clear sign that the Taliban circumvent global pressure every time they change their revenue sector.
Inside Afghanistan, the structure of plunder is apparent. The Taliban appoint representatives at the extraction sites of mines that are not so strategic to take their mandatory ten percent share. When it comes to exports, the same ministries that should legalize the path become obstacles: unrealistic pricing, heavy files, and obvious corruption. The exporter is forced to resort to smuggling. The Taliban have deliberately closed this path so that everything turns into darkness and the main profit flows into their own pockets. Those who have the capability for legal export of these materials are either from the Taliban themselves or indirectly partners in each other’s interests.
Precious stones such as emeralds, lapis lazuli, and gold exit through Pakistan more than ninety-five percent of the time and are sold in China, Dubai, and India. Luxury construction stones, Kandahar marble, Helmand talc, and onyx are exported through Iran and Pakistan as raw blocks, and there, by adding value, are exported to other countries and sold under Pakistan’s name. Afghanistan gains no share of the added value; only wounded lands, polluted waters, and impoverished people remain.
In the northeast of the country, gold mines have come under complete Taliban monopoly. Companies affiliated with local commanders operate without official permits. Anyone who pays the Taliban’s share, even illegally, has permission to extract; anyone who resists is threatened or even executed. In Badakhshan, four local miners who stood against the plunder were shot at night. This repression not only forced the local community into silence but also poured gold profits directly into the pockets of the Taliban and their terrorist allies. International reports show that between 2022 and 2024 alone, Al-Qaeda obtained approximately $194 million from gold extraction in northeast Afghanistan.
Among these resources, calcium fluoride (fluorspar) shows an example of the importance of these materials. This substance plays a vital role in the iron smelting industry, and without it, Afghanistan, despite having enormous iron resources, will not be able to create a sustainable steel industry. But today, instead of serving domestic development, it is exported by the ton from the country and sold in Pakistani markets. Global trade data shows that China and South Korea are among the main destinations for these exports; China for metals and battery industries, and South Korea for steel and glass. The result is clear: Afghanistan, instead of becoming the founder of the steel industry with its resources, remains with an incomplete economy, and tomorrow will be forced to buy back this vital material from the global market. The Taliban are not only plundering today, but have also taken the country’s industrial future hostage.
However, the Taliban’s story is not limited to Afghanistan. Today, powers like China have taken the Taliban’s plunder cycle to a new level. According to a Reuters report, Beijing has promised to give complete tariff exemption to Afghanistan’s exports. This means that the Taliban, while driving girls from schools and silencing the voices of local protesters with bullets, can “legitimately” bring the country’s underground resources into the Chinese market. For Beijing, Afghanistan is not a country with deprived humans, but a source for lithium, uranium, copper, and iron, materials that strengthen the industrial chain of China.
On one hand, China, like other countries, has not officially recognized the Taliban, but on the other hand, in practice, it has opened the door of the global economy for them. “Zero tariff” means the Taliban can go from domestic plunder to official exports and fill their treasury fuller. This is the same danger that, if not taken seriously, will turn Afghanistan from a local smuggling field into a key link in the global black economy chain.
In public speeches, the Taliban speak of “development,” but in practice, they deepen poverty. Their Supreme Leader mentioned “mines and land” as a way to reduce poverty in his Eid message, but that same speech only addressed men and excluded women. This apparent contradiction between words and actions is the Taliban’s true face: outside the borders, slogans of development and cooperation, but inside, plunder, discrimination, and repression.
The main question here is: how are the Taliban controlled? The answer can be summarized in one sentence: the Taliban are alive as long as they have money. Every dollar from gold and emerald smuggling, every remittance from Dubai or Karachi, every tariff agreement with China, and every ton of calcium fluoride that reaches South Korean steel factories or Chinese metal industries is an arrow in the Taliban’s ammunition depot. The way to control the Taliban is the way to stop them from making money.
The international community must target the Taliban’s financial resources: sanctioning illegal mining exports, creating a “Taliban-free” label for mineral materials, strict monitoring of remittances and charities, and pressure on countries that are partners in this plunder. At the same time, alternative options must be provided for the people of Afghanistan: investment in domestic processing, support for transparent companies, and creation of legitimate job opportunities.
The Taliban have found a new path for income every time: from opium to methamphetamine, from mines to foreign contracts. But one truth has not changed: all these paths end in money and all this money in terror. The end of terror passes through the end of the black economy, and the end of the black economy is only possible with a collective will to close the Taliban’s financial artery.
Afghanistan deserves an economy that builds schools and hospitals, not a treasury that provides guns and gunpowder. If the world does not decide today, tomorrow, not only Afghanistan, but the security of the region and the world will remain hostage to the Taliban’s black economy. But if this artery is closed, the Taliban will run out of breath, war will lose strength, and hope, however slowly, will flow again.
You can read the Persian version of this analysis here:
