What Will the Taliban Do With a $22 Billion Economy?
Before retaking all of Afghanistan, the group had revenues that could amount to upwards of $1 billion — in a good year. No one knows if it even has the skills to begin running a central bank.
Shoppers in Kabul before the city fell to the Taliban..
Photographer: SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFPNo sooner had the Taliban taken Kabul than questions began to be asked about how they would manage Afghanistan’s economy. Do the insurgents-turned-rulers have the skills to run, say, a modern finance ministry and central bank? Will foreign donors trust them with aid? Can they do business with investors interested in the country’s mineral wealth?
Throughout their two decades in the wilderness, the Taliban have shown themselves capable of generating resources to maintain an insurgency, mostly from the drug trade, illegal mining and donations from supporters abroad, but also from taxes and rents in areas under their control. In good years, the Taliban’s revenues amounted to upwards of $1 billion.