Hamid Azizia & Caitlin Elizabeth Hughes
Introduction
There has been longstanding attention to the nexus between terrorism and the drug trade, particularly the extent to which terrorist organisations profit from and are sustained by the drug trade (Paoli et al., Citation2022). This issue is becoming more important post-August 2021 when the Taliban gained control in Afghanistan - the world’s largest producer of opium. High-level policy debates have arisen about how this may impact the international drug trade and organised crime more broadly (The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC], Citation2022). Concern over the transnational threat of the crime-terror nexus and its challenge to global peace and security have been reflected in the United Nations Security Councils’ resolutions as early as the 1990s and increasingly since the 9/11 attack in the United States (UNODC, Citation2001). For example, in Afghanistan, where over 80% of the world’s opium has been produced, many have argued that the opiate trade revenue has helped the Taliban to survive for over two decades (Freeman, Citation2011; Peters, Citation2009; SIGAR, Citation2018; UNODC, Citation2009, Citation2017a; UNSMT, Citation2015).
Freeman (Citation2011) classified terrorist organisations’ income sources into the following four categories: 1) state sponsorship; 2) revenue derived from licit activities and businesses; 3) income from organised crime and illegal activities; and 4) donations from individuals and institutions supporting a terrorist cause for political, economic, or religious interests. Freeman notes that while state sponsorship was a significant funding source for terrorist groups during the Cold War, it was substituted by organised crime by the end of the War. He further notes that revenues from the drug trade, kidnapping, extortion, and illegal exploitation of natural resources, among others, have helped several terrorist organisations to survive.
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