Mujahid: Taliban Has Ambitious Plan to Prevent Drug Production in Afghanistan

Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesman for the Taliban (an Afghani Islamist militant movement), confirmed that the movement, after taking power in the country, will tighten anti-drug measures.

He revealed that the Taliban has an ambitious plan to prevent drug production in the country.

In statements to Russia Today (RT), Mujahid said that at the present time there are about three million Afghans who are addicted to drugs. This is a tragic phenomenon of the  Afghani people.

He affirmed that his movement will try to get rid of drug production and manufacture, as happened in 2001 when the  Taliban managed to eradicate drug production and manufacture.

He stressed that the movement will work in the same direction over the period to come.

He added that people in some states still grow, collect and manufacture drugs.

Here, too, it is necessary to cooperate not only with the countries of the region but also with those who are interested in the other countries.

Mujahid pointed out that it is necessary to direct farmers to grow other crops instead of drugs.

Mujahid stressed that the Taliban will pay attention to not allowing the passage of drugs through Afghanistan's airports and border crossing areas, expressing hope that the next government will pay special attention to this problem.

The past three years have seen some of the highest levels of opium production in Afghanistan, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, as the drug trade becoming the true backbone of the Afghan economy.

This problem is of particular concern to Russia, which over the past decades has become a major market for Afghan heroin.

Russia has previously proposed to Kabul and Afghanistan's neighboring countries to develop a joint strategy to contribute to eliminating drug production in Afghanistan.

Now with the rise of the "Taliban" to power in Afghanistan, Moscow has confirmed its desire that the flow of narcotics and opium from Afghanistan must be stopped, and that they stop traveling to different parts of the world," said Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov.