“The new opium capital of the world carries the risk of millions of dollars flowing to terrorists”; this paragraph is the title of a report published by the English newspaper The Telegraph, a report that reveals major events that have unfolded in silence.
Recently, The Telegraph newspaper published a documentary report calling Pakistan the new capital of the world’s opium; a title that was previously used for Afghanistan before the fall of the republican regime and the escape of the occupiers from this land.
According to the report, based on satellite imagery collected by the geospatial data company “Alcis,” up to 70% of agricultural land in some areas is dedicated to opium cultivation; in surveys conducted in just two small regions of Balochistan, approximately 8,100 hectares of poppy fields were discovered.
A noteworthy point is the location of the cultivated lands; the core of these lands is situated in southwestern Pakistan, specifically in Balochistan, a region known as the stronghold of ISIS-Khorasan.
Undoubtedly, it can be said that the unprecedented cultivation of opium in areas where ISIS’s influence is widely evident is closely linked to the group’s financial support by Pakistan; a detestable group that, according to credible evidence and documents, has been active in destabilizing neighboring countries and being used as a tool by Pakistan in these areas for some time, and is sometimes trained by the Pakistani army.
In addition to being profitable for ISIS and providing them with financial benefits, cultivating drugs will also bring significant gains for Pakistan itself, a government that is in an economic crisis and has now turned to ISIS and, more recently, drug cultivation to save itself from this quagmire. On the other hand, the Pakistani government could launch operations in the coming years under the false slogan of destroying opium poppy cultivation and request financial assistance from Western countries to advance them.
Meanwhile, the silence of local Pakistani journalists regarding this large-scale opium cultivation clearly indicates the complicity of the country’s government in this matter; a trend that Bilal Yasir, a prominent Pakistani journalist, also points out: “The cultivation of opium on thousands of hectares of land in this region was a story that our local journalists could not tell, and which was finally revealed by a foreign newspaper a year later.” Such a massive harvest is not possible without government collusion.
Zalmay Khalilzad, stating that Pakistan has now become the world’s opium capital, writes on his X page:
Bad news from Pakistan: The Telegraph newspaper reports that the country has become the world’s opium capital.
He continued by listing the negative consequences of this event, adding, “Opium cultivation has many consequences: financing terrorist and violent groups, increasing criminal activity in the economy and politics, and the spread of drug addiction among the population; an issue that remains a threat to neighboring countries and beyond.”
In conclusion, it can be said that the new title, “World’s Opium Capital” for Pakistan, is not just a media warning but a serious alarm bell for the region and the world. When drug cultivation and trafficking become intertwined with the interests of the government, terrorist groups, and criminal networks, the result will be nothing but the spread of insecurity, the weakening of the legitimate economy, and the expansion of addiction domestically and internationally.
It should be mentioned that if this trend continues without a serious response from the international community, not only will Pakistan sink deeper into the quagmire of crisis, but its flames will also quickly spread to neighboring countries and beyond.
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