Afrah Jamal

Published in Daily Times / June 5, 2010 With money at the root, opium at the core, smugglers at the back and the Taliban in the lead, an ancient form of commerce feeds a burgeoning terror industry. Gretchen Peters is convinced that hunting down the elusive top tier leadership must be in conjunction with targeting the source of their (fire)power. The ‘House of Terror’ has branched out. But are the pious, holier than thou Taliban ‘doing drugs’? Seeds of Terror seems to think so. But it does not cast them as drug barons or junkies but as profiteers — patrons of a trade they have perfected to an art. Peters sees this as an economic miracle (of sorts) given that it originates from “one of the world’s most remote and backward regions, where the transport network and infrastructure is almost completely shattered”, but where the Taliban have nevertheless “managed to integrate an agricultural product — albeit illegally — into the global economy”. This crude yet effective form of commerce k...