Seeds of Terror
How Drugs, Thugs and Crime are Reshaping the Afghan War
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The astonishing expose of al Qaeda and the Taliban’s booming drug trade
Seeds of Terror will reshape the way you think about the West’s enemies, revealing them less as ideologues and more as criminals who earn billions of pounds every year off the opium trade. With the breakneck pace of a thriller, author Gretchen Peters traces their illicit activities from the vast poppy fields of southern Afghanistan to heroin labs run by Taliban commanders, from drug convoys armed with Stinger missiles to the money launderers of Karachi and Dubai. Based on hundreds of interviews with Taliban fighters, smugglers, and law enforcement and intelligence agents, Peters makes the case that we must cut terrorists off from their drug earnings if we ever hope to beat them.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Peters draws on 10 years of reporting from Afghanistan and Pakistan for this important examination of "the nexus of smugglers and extremists" in the global war against terrorists. Citing firsthand testimony, classified intelligence reports and specialized studies, Peters builds a solid case for her contention that the "union of narco-traffickers, terrorist groups, and the international criminal underworld is the new axis of evil." Ground zero is Afghanistan, where the rejuvenated Taliban depend on opium for 70% of its funds and there is "overwhelming circumstantial evidence" of Osama bin Laden's involvement in the drug trade. Peters argues that the failure to halt this money flow to terrorist networks is "the single greatest failure in the war on terror," and warns that stanching the flood of drug money into terrorist coffers is essential. The author offers a less-than-convincing strategy to sever the link, including "military strikes against drug lords," "alternative-livelihood programs" for small farmers, regional diplomatic initiatives and a public relations campaign. Prescriptions aside, Peters has exhaustively framed one of the thorniest problems facing policy makers in this long war.
