ONDCP Excel Ninety-Fourth Row

Action Item Number:

6.2.B

Action Item Name:

Disrupt the Narcotics-Insurgency Nexus and the Narcotics-Corruption Nexus in Afghanistan

Action Item Description:

Disrupting the illicit narcotics trade in Afghanistan is essential to ensuring Afghanistan’s future security, stability, and rule of law; depriving the Taliban of opium trade profits; and reducing the flow of illegal opiates to partner nations in Europe and Asia.

Limiting the pervasive impact that the narcotics-insurgency-corruption symbiosis has had on Afghan economic development, governance, and security, as well as on regional stability, is important to the United States’ national security interests. The United States is engaging in a new approach to counter opium poppy cultivation and heroin production and trafficking in Afghanistan. This approach is focused on fostering rural economic and agricultural development and enhanced interdiction to wean Afghan farmers off opium poppy while depriving the insurgency and corrupt officials of the profits from this illegal economy. The United States is also working with the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to conduct investigations and operations in Afghanistan targeting drug kingpins and high-value targets, including organizations funding the insurgency. The United States will continue to work with its Afghan partners and other international allies and multilateral organizations such as UNODC that share a commitment to reducing opium poppy cultivation and heroin production in Afghanistan.

Lead Agency:

State

Component(s):

---