Kabul har fallit. Talibanerna har tagit över Afghanistan.

The World Bank has suspended aid to Afghanistan after the Taliban took control of the country.
"We are deeply concerned about the situation in Afghanistan and the impact on the country’s development prospects, especially for women," a spokesperson said.
The bank is exploring ways to remain engaged and preserve "hard-won development gains" in the country, the spokesperson said.
The World Bank currently has more than two dozen development projects in Afghanistan and has provided $5.3 billion (£3.8 billion) since 2002, according to the bank's website.

Mauro Indelicato
AUGUST 24, 2021

Perhaps they have learned to use social media and to have a more "moderate" language, since they took Kabul their approach has appeared more political. But in recent years the Taliban have also shown not indifferent skills in economic management. Beyond the Islamist ideology and the historical hold that the group has on members of the Pasthun ethnic group, money is also needed to keep rooted in a country like Afghanistan. And Quranic students over the past 20 years have found quite a few.

A budget of 1.6 billion dollars

To finance their guerrilla warfare against international forces, the Taliban needed a lot of income. The problem wasn't just guns. In these 20 years following the US intervention, the Islamists have had to find hiding places, financially support the most important leaders, finance travel. Not only that: to guarantee a certain freedom of movement in the territory, it was also essential to have a certain liquidity to bribe Afghan guards, policemen and soldiers. Having survived two decades of war was the sign of an unprecedented "management" capacity of the Koranic students. In 2020 one of the leaders, Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, disclosed the income received by the Taliban. In particular, he spoke of revenues of $ 1.6 billion. A huge figure, just think, as pointed out in Il Corriere della Sera , that the Afghan state, the same collapsed with the Islamist advance, in the year of the pandemic grossed a total of 5.5 billion dollars. It means that the Taliban alone have secured almost a quarter of what is received by the state apparatus in Kabul.

With these sums the group was able to finance its advance. Also because, among other things, the leaders of the movement were able to significantly reduce costs on two important budget items: weapons and payment.of the militiamen. On the first front, the dissolution of the Afghan army guaranteed the Taliban to get hold of large quantities of supplies and ammunition. On the other hand, it is good to remember that the Islamist soldiers are largely volunteers and do not receive regular salaries. With the figures collected in 2020, therefore, the new masters of Kabul were able to put a lot of money on the plate for the warlords, for the Pasthun clans and for the various tribes they encountered on their approach to the capital. In doing so, they secured many allies and this would also explain the surrender of many strongholds traditionally hostile to the Taliban. The movement, in general, has secured the liquidity necessary to not only survive the war but also take over the whole of Afghanistan.

Where the sums come from

Therefore, having established that the Islamist group did not experience a crisis even in the year of the pandemic, we must ask ourselves where such high figures have come from. One could think, in the first place, of support from abroad. The reference is to those regional powers that have always been more or less close to the Taliban, starting with Pakistan . In reality, according to a scrupulous survey conducted in recent months by The Conversation site , the money did arrive from the outside but this budget item was not decisive. And we speak above all of private donations , that is, made by wealthy rich people or by cultural institutions that support the Islamist cause.

Out of 1.6 billion in receipts in 2020, donations from abroad would have contributed about 500 million dollars. Most of the sums in their favor the Taliban manage to collect from inside Afghanistan. In the first place thanks to the control of numerous opium plantations . Something like 84% of the total opium production comes out of the country and where Islamists have a great territorial roots in these 20 years they have imposed a tax of 10% on anyone who participates in the supply chain. Thanks to this mechanism, the Taliban would have raised almost half a billion dollars every year.
A similar situation occurs with the mines , of which Afghanistan is rich . Rare earths, minerals, copper, zinc are extracted from the mountains of the Asian country. The Koranic students are not involved in the direct exploitation of the mines, but where they control the territory they impose taxes on all the companies involved. In a nutshell, you need to talk to them to be able to work inside the mines. In this way the revenues could reach up to 300 million dollars. There are also other taxes, those imposed on all traders and citizens where the Taliban already had total control of the territory instead of state institutions. Finally, Koranic students have been engaged in construction, real estate and exports for years. So scattered treasures that have helped to put together a multinational budget. And now that control is extended to all of Afghanistan, even more profitable scenarios are opening up for the Taliban.
(Koranic students, Quranic students = Koran-studenter, detsamma som Talibaner)