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According to reports from New York Times, the attempts of US for locating the funding sources of Taliban have not been successful.
The Taliban in Afghanistan are running a sophisticated financial network to pay for their insurgent operations, raising hundreds of millions of dollars from the illicit drug trade, kidnappings, extortion and foreign donations that American officials say they are struggling to cut off, says NY Times.
Taliban is said to have implemented a comprehensive system for cultivating, processing and shipping opium in Afghanistan. According to NY Times, the fund-raisers have been sent by Taliban to Middle East and Arab nations so that the funds required for the attacks are always.
Estimates of the Taliban's annual revenue vary widely. Proceeds from the illicit drug trade alone range from $70 million to $400 million a year, according to Pentagon and United Nations officials cited by the Times.
Taliban, which is generating revenues by means other than opium, is frustrating American and NATO efforts for eliminating Taliban funding options.
"Despite efforts by the United States and its allies in the last year to cripple the Taliban's financing, using the military and intelligence, American officials acknowledge they barely made a dent," the Times said.
The NY Times have mentioned that Taliban’s largest cash source comes from foreign donations and not by means of opium.
The CIA recently estimated in a classified report that Taliban leaders and their associates had received $106 million in the past year from donors outside Afghanistan, a figure first reported last month by The Washington Post.
Private Citizens from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran and some Persian Gulf nations are the largest individual contributors to Taliban’s fund.
