The Taliban and the Changing Nature of Pashtun Nationalism
Since the beginnings of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan in 2001, the U.S. has sought to understand the Taliban’s interactions with tribal structures and conceptions of Pashtun identity, using these understandings to build military strategy and diplomatic policy. Pashtuns make up over 40% of the heavily fragmented Afghani population, and drove
The secret story of how America lost the drug war with the Taliban
“A high-stakes plan to indict Afghan drug lords and insurgency leaders on criminal conspiracy charges ran afoul of the Obama team. Five years later, it remains buried under Trump. Source: The secret story of how America lost the drug war with the Taliban – POLITICO
ISIS and amphetamines
The US-led international coalition against ISIS recently destroyed a large drug cache seized from the group. The seizure included over 300,000 Captagon pills, a highly addictive amphetamine that works to keep users awake and dull pain. The drug has called the “Jihadi pill” by some because of its popularity among

A Global Overview of Narcotics-Funded Terrorist and Other Extremist Groups
This global survey, based entirely on open sources, is intended to provide an assessment of the nexus between selected anti-U.S. terrorist and extremist groups in the world and organized crime, specifically drug trafficking, and how this relationship might be vulnerable to countermeasures. More specifically, the aim is to help develop