Taliban sells off Afghanistan's natural resources to enrich themselves
On December 24, 2024, The New York Times published anarticle by their U.S.-Pakistani writer Azam Ahmed. In the article, he blamed
Afghan anti-Taliban militias for Afghanistan's fall. He said they were more
corrupt than the Taliban.
This issue
will be discussed here. Of course, this discussion focuses only on what
happened after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan.
Recently, it was reported that the U.S. has stopped giving
money to the Taliban. But this does not mean the Taliban government is over.
Afghanistan has many natural resources, which even the Taliban know about.
Industrial countries need not only energy but also raw
materials and rare earths to make modern technology like smartphones,
computers, chips, and storage devices. The latest development, artificial
intelligence (AI), requires all these resources many times over.
Many articles have been written about this issue:
1) France 24 (2 February 2025): Cash-keen Taliban betting on Afghanistan's mines
The article mentions: "Emeralds, rubies, marble, gold and lithium: the resources buried across Afghanistan's rocky landscape are estimated to be worth a trillion dollars, according to US and UN assessments from 2010 and 2013. (...) The World Bank says the results are already visible: a 6.9 percent expansion of mining and quarrying drove an industrial sector increase of 2.6 percent in 2023-2024. But while the government "has auctioned several small mining contracts to meet its cash requirements, many of these contracts have yet to commence operations", it said in a December report."
Taliban leaders, who are illiterates and have no clue about business, sell off Afghanistan's natural resources to China, according to the article: "The Chinese state-owned company MCC is already operating at the Mes Aynak copper deposit, the world's second-largest, located 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Kabul, under a 2008 contract revived by the Taliban government."
2) The Washington Post (2 February 2025): A Taliban highway could lead to the future. But it's stuck in the past.
The article is mainly about Afghanistan's possible connection to China's industry to sell Afghanistan's resources (at a loss): "The regime wants to build a highway through the Wakhan Corridor, the narrow, rugged panhandle in the far northeast, to connect the Afghan heartland with China — and place itself at the center of international commerce."
3) Shafaqna Afghanistan (30 January 2025): Taliban-style discrimination; "Building roads, hospitals, and dams in Kandahar, Uruzgan, and Maidan Wardak in exchange for mining in Bamyan"
The article mentions: "The Taliban’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum has awarded the extraction of several mining areas in the Shiite and Hazara-dominated Bamyan province to private companies in exchange for the construction of roads, hospitals and dams in the Pashtun-dominated provinces of Kandahar, Uruzgan and Maidan Wardak. (...) The Taliban’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum has said that these contracts have been signed for five years and will be extended for a second time if the companies work in accordance with the principles, procedures of the mines and their commitments. These contracts were signed by Hedayatullah Badri, the Taliban’s acting Minister of Mines and Petroleum, with officials from private companies. The handover of lead and zinc mines in the Shiite, Hazara-dominated province of Bamyan in exchange for the construction of roads, dams, electricity, and hospitals in Pashtun-dominated provinces has met with widespread backlash. Afghan citizens have called the Taliban’s move “discriminatory,” “cruel,” and against the country’s mining law. They argue that Bamyan province is one of the most deprived and underdeveloped provinces in the country, and according to the law and principles, the province’s mines should be used to build roads, hospitals, water and electricity dams, schools and universities in this province, and not in other provinces."
4) The Panjshir Valley, a former stronghold of anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban resistance fighters, is famous for its emerald, a very famous and expensive gemstone, which the Taliban also sell far below its market value.
5) Balkhab has huge copper and coal mines. The Taliban lead a bloody war against the Shia population of Balkhab and finally subjugated the local population in August 2022 in order to extract the natural resources of that region for their own benefit. While millions of Afghans are freezing during the cold winters of Afghanistan, Uzbekistan as a main supporter of the Taliban, purchases Afghanistan's coal:
"A delegation of Uzbek business representatives has expressed interest in purchasing Afghan coal in an effort to maintain trade balance between the two countries, according to the Taliban’s Ministry of Industry and Commerce."
So while USA under the Trump-administration is watching and hesitating to attack the Taliban or to bring back its weapons worth several billion U.S. dollars, as Donald Trump promised prior to his presidency in 2025, regional countries are creating facts. It seems that the USA will finally lose its dominance in the world, as it has failed to create a clear policy towards Afghanistan and the world.
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