Despite the Taliban’s pledge to eradicate opium, the poppy trade still flourishes in Afghanistan: The Taliban have always had a complicated relationship with the opium trade. As a narcotic, opium is haram, or forbidden under Islamic law. But at the same time opium production has tended to increase in areas they have controlled, where local …
How the Taliban’s more effective and ‘fairer’ tax system helped it win control of Afghanistan: When the Taliban dramatically gained control of Afghanistan in August 2021, they used bombs and guns to swiftly overcome state security forces. But they also had another valuable and effective weapon at their disposal: taxes. Long before the withdrawal of …
Afghanistan: who’s who in the Taliban’s ‘inclusive’ new administration: As western powers frantically scramble to evacuate their citizens and the Afghan nationals who worked for them, the nature of the Taliban leadership’s intentions for how it intends to govern remains obscure. But if various messages fed in recent days to the international media are to …