The money is said to come from protection rackets, taxes imposed on opium farmers, donors in the Gulf states who channel money through Dubai and from the senior Taliban leadership in Pakistan.
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The Iranian companies win contracts to supply materials and logistics to Afghans involved in reconstruction. The money often comes in the form of aid from foreign donors.
The profits are transferred through poorly regulated Afghan banks – including the Kabul Bank, which is partly owned by President Hamid Karzai’s brother, Mahmood – to Tehran and Dubai.
From these countries, the money returns to Afghanistan through the informal Islamic banking system known as hawala to be dispersed to the Taliban fighters.
“This means the companies involved in funding the insurgency can cover their tracks easily. It makes it harder for us to trace the cashflow,” a senior Afghan intelligence officer said.
He said the Iranian companies had been formed with the intention of winning contracts funded by foreign aid so the donors’ cash could be channelled into the insurgency.
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In the past I have talked about this market of force concept in which the enemy is able to attract combatants that are contracted for the killing of our troops. The Taliban pay better and they offer incentives that give the possibility of even more pay. The incentive here is bounties, and the money comes from foreign donor sources or from drug sales and extortion rackets. In other words, the enemy is creating an industry that profits off the death of our troops. A system of bounties also attracts those that are the most proficient or creative in their abilities to kill, both local and foreign.
Below I posted three stories that all highlight exactly how this Taliban market of force works. From assigning values to equipment being destroyed, to individuals being killed. I am also speculating that these foreign mercenary sniper teams were not only contracted, but also allowed to receive bounties for each kill. It would make sense, just because they too would be rewarded for their deadly skills and inclined to stay in the fight to rack up kills.
Also, other Taliban fighters will be drawn to the most target rich areas of the country with the greatest chance of getting away with their kills. They will also go for the easiest kills possible, which would be either IED’s or sniping. In those cases, they need witnesses or video via cellphone camera, etc. to confirm the kill and get payment.
If they attacked in force in some kind of coordinated effort, I am sure the entire unit would be rewarded and they would split the prize. In that case, those fighters interested in more profit would probably be interested in joining the best teams with the highest kill ratios. Much like how the best privateer companies attracted investors during the American Revolutionary War, or how the best pirate companies in Somalia attract wannabe pirates seeking a chance to get wealthy.
The other thing that is attractive about a system of bounties is that a Taliban commander can use their averages as a means of recruitment. He can tell potential recruits that he pays $245 a month, but his guys also have the highest bounty collections rate in the area. Everyone loves to join a winning team in this high dollar hunting game.
I wonder though how suicide bombers are viewed in this game? I am sure if they were part of the attack, then I would assume the Taliban commander and his team would collect some payment for the deaths that these human bombs created? With that said, I am sure there is some form of a prize court that these guys go through in order to work these issues out. –Matt
Taliban paid bounties for kills
Taliban win £1,600 bounty for each Nato soldier killed
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Taliban paid bounties for kills
Miles Amoore
September 06, 2010
IRANIAN companies in Kabul are using their offices to covertly finance Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.
They are paying bounties of $US1000 ($1090) for killing a US soldier and $US6000 for destroying a military vehicle, a treasurer for the insurgents says.
Afghan intelligence and Taliban sources said at least five front companies, set up in the past six months, provide cash for a network of district Taliban treasurers to pay battlefield expenses and bonuses for killing foreign troops and destroying their vehicles.
The Iranian companies win contracts to supply materials and logistics to Afghans involved in reconstruction. The money often comes in the form of aid from foreign donors.
The profits are transferred through poorly regulated Afghan banks – including the Kabul Bank, which is partly owned by President Hamid Karzai’s brother, Mahmood – to Tehran and Dubai.
From these countries, the money returns to Afghanistan through the informal Islamic banking system known as hawala to be dispersed to the Taliban fighters.
“This means the companies involved in funding the insurgency can cover their tracks easily. It makes it harder for us to trace the cashflow,” a senior Afghan intelligence officer said.
He said the Iranian companies had been formed with the intention of winning contracts funded by foreign aid so the donors’ cash could be channelled into the insurgency.
Western officials believe the network may have been set up by the al-Quds force, an elite branch of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard.
The Iranian embassy in Kabul refused to respond to the claims. But one Taliban treasurer confirmed that Iran was paying bonuses of $US1000 for killing a US soldier and $US6000 for destroying a US military vehicle.
Nobody would have noticed the Taliban treasurer’s arrival at an office in Kabul with his assistant in tow: he had dressed in Western clothes and clipped his beard to avoid attracting attention. Directed to a small room furnished with a single table and chair, he was told to wait.
Ten minutes later, he was joined by a smartly suited Iranian businessman carrying a briefcase full of cash.
The treasurer lifted one bundle of notes after another from the case, counting $US18,000 in all. Then he wrapped the money carefully in old clothes and stuffed the bundles into a large sack of flour.
He left the office of the Iranian construction company as unobtrusively as he had come and jumped into a taxi.
After 20 minutes, his assistant emerged into the early August sunshine with the sack, hailing a cab of his own.
The two men met on the outskirts of the capital for their journey home to the neighbouring province of Wardak. There, they handed out the cash to Taliban commanders.
It was the commanders’ eagerly awaited reward for killing several Afghan and foreign soldiers when they blew up two local army pick-up trucks and an US armoured vehicle on July 12.
According to the treasurer, he has picked up almost $86,000 in bonuses from the Iranian company in the past six months.
Even larger sums have been collected to pay the wages and expenses of the 200 Taliban fighters in his area: they earn about $245 a month, more than an Afghan police officer or soldier.
The Sunday Times arranged to meet the treasurer through an intermediary with links to the militants. The treasurer, a poor farmer, said he joined the Taliban as a foot soldier four years ago after “seeing the destruction America was bringing to my country”. He was taught to read and write last northern winter at a camp near the Iranian city of Isfahan, where he was also trained in basic accountancy.
“It’s important for documenting the money,” he said. “I have to sign off on all the receipts, and I have to add up how much each fighter deserves after each operation. I also have to communicate in the Iranian language.”
The $245 a month paid to each fighter supports their families and covers their living costs and expenses, such as motorcycle fuel and phone cards.
The treasurer moves between his district and Kabul on the orders of the Taliban’s provincial governor in Wardak, a shadow of the official post. The shadow governor calls the Iranian company in Kabul and uses code to arrange a time for the money to be picked up.
“I come to Kabul wearing smart clothes. I don’t have a beard, I don’t wear a turban. I keep a low profile. I have never faced any problems collecting the money,” he said.
He parks on the outskirts of the city, takes a taxi to the company offices, where he gives a false name at the gates, and is escorted to the first floor.
“There are lots of computers in the office. It is some kind of construction company. There are about 50 people working at their desks there. Some are Afghans and some are Iranians,” he said.
US and British military intelligence have received numerous reports Iran is secretly backing the Taliban fighters. Its support includes supplying components for improvised explosive devices responsible for most of the deaths of NATO soldiers in Afghanistan.
A compendium of military intelligence documents sent to WikiLeaks, the whistleblowers’ website, and released in July, contains a good deal of raw intelligence about Iranian support for the insurgents, including claims Taliban delegations have visited Iran to procure weapons, that wounded Taliban fighters are treated at hospitals in Tehran, and that fighters are trained at bases in the eastern Iranian city of Birjand.
In May, The Sunday Times revealed how Taliban militants received military training at camps inside Iran. “Iran’s support for the Taliban is incredibly discreet and clandestine,” one Western official said last week.
“Their purpose is to bleed America on Afghan soil, to act as a thorn in their side. They are playing a very clever double game.”
Iran also supports the Karzai government, funding Islamic schools, television stations and candidates in parliamentary elections due next week.
“Iran is basically hedging its bets to ensure political leverage in Afghanistan once the American forces leave,” the official said. “It is supporting both sides while trying to do as much damage to America as possible before NATO leaves.”
The relationship is particularly striking because the Sunni-dominated Taliban view Iran’s Shia population as heretics.
“We don’t care who we get money from,” said the Taliban treasurer, who agreed it was a marriage of convenience for both sides. “Iran will never stop funding us, because the Americans are dangerous for them as well. I think the hatred is the same from both us and Iran. The money we get is not dirty. It is for jihad.”
Story here.
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By Andrew Gregory
23/08/2010
Four deadly snipers recruited by the Taliban have been blasted to bits by air strikes after locals betrayed them.
The foreign mercenaries, who worked in pairs, are feared to have shot dead up to 10 British soldiers in Afghanistan.
They are said to have been killing at a range of up to 650 yards and were targeted after locals tipped off the Afghan National Army about their identities and locations.
Their victims include Sapper Darren Foster, 20, of Whitehaven, Cumbria.
He was picked off by a single shot which went through a 9in gap in a protected look-out post in Sangin Valley, Helmand.
The first two snipers were killed in Sangin 11 days ago, and the second pair on Friday.
Elite SAS and SBS troops worked with US and Afghan Special Forces to track them down. But the hiding places of the killers were finally revealed by locals to Afghan National Army troops, reports said. And after Special Forces confirmed their presence by secret surveillance, the jets were called in. The pilots of US F-16s used precise co-ordinates to target bombs at the snipers without killing or injuring civilians.
A military source said: “These foreign snipers are crackshots who work in teams of two – one spotting the target, the other firing the fatal shot.
“Once they have hit their target, they disappear and find a new location. The trouble is that we can take two snipers out and another two will be recruited.”
British commanders have become increasingly concerned at the number of troops killed by gunfire, and the fact that the Taliban is using specialist foreign snipers.
Major-General Gordon Messenger said: “What the guys are seeing on the ground, not just in Sangin but also in Nad-e Ali, is an increased use of single shots at range. We’re adjusting our tactics to counter it.”
Shops were urged last night to ban a computer game where players can act as the Taliban and kill British troops. Defence Secretary Liam Fox said he was “disgusted” by the updated version of Medal of Honour, due out in October.
Story here.
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Taliban win £1,600 bounty for each Nato soldier killed
Miles Amoore
May 23, 2010
TALIBAN rebels are earning a bounty of up to 200,000 Pakistani rupees (£1,660) for each Nato soldier they kill, according to insurgent commanders.
The money is said to come from protection rackets, taxes imposed on opium farmers, donors in the Gulf states who channel money through Dubai and from the senior Taliban leadership in Pakistan.
So far this year 213 Nato soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan, including 41 British troops, bringing the potential rewards for the Taliban to £350,000.
Taliban commanders said the bounty had more than doubled since the beginning of last year.
The insurgents, who employ “hit and run” tactics against foot patrols and convoys, use paid informants, media reports and the local population to confirm the deaths of Nato soldiers.
“We can’t lie to our commanders: they can check to see if there was a fight in that area. We get money if we capture equipment too. A gun can fetch $1,000 [£690],” said a commander from Khost province who controls about 60 fighters.
The money usually reaches commanders via the traditional hawala transfer system found in many Muslim countries. They then share it among their men and sometimes celebrate with a feast.
“It’s a lot of money for us. We don’t care if we kill foreigners: their blood allows us to feed our families and the more we kill, the more we weaken them. Of course we are going to celebrate this,” said a commander from Ghazni province.
The increase in rewards for Taliban fighters comes as the Afghan government prepares to present its strategy for ending the insurgency. This aims to lure less senior insurgents away from the fighting by offering them jobs in farming and engineering, vocational training in carpet weaving and carpentry, education and assimilation into the Afghan security forces, including the secret police.
President Hamid Karzai hopes that a peace jirga (tribal council) in Kabul next weekend will rally support for this peace and reintegration programme (PRP).
The PRP says little about the government’s approach to negotiations with senior Taliban, but suggests that exile in a third country is one option.
“We are weary of war and division and we have shed too many tears. Out of division let us build unity,” says the draft strategy. In January a conference in London attended by the Afghan government and its international backers raised £110m to fund the reintegration strategy.
Insurgents who are willing to lay down their weapons and join the government will undergo a 90-day cooling off period in “demobilisation centres”, where they will be vetted and given biometric identity cards.
After that they will be granted amnesty provided they sever any links with AlQaeda and renounce violence. Fighters will be sent to “deradicalisation” classes taught by mullahs and for psychological counselling and psychiatric treatment.
The government’s proposals have received a mixed reaction from Taliban commanders, who are referred to as “our upset brothers” in the draft.
“I think our leaders are trying to find ways to counter the government’s proposals. The extra cash [bounties] will encourage more people to join us and will get inactive groups to fight,” said a deputy district commander from Kandahar.
A minority said they would be willing to surrender their weapons in return for jobs. “But the government and international community should know that they can’t solve the problem by giving jobs only to us fighters. They must consider all the poor people; otherwise those who don’t get jobs will take up arms,” warned a low-level commander from Ghazni who said he had joined the Taliban four years ago to feed his family.
Most Taliban commanders deny any financial motive. In a dozen interviews over the past four months, low and midlevel Taliban commanders from provinces where the insurgency is fierce have set out their conditions for ending the violence.
“We are not fighting for money or power. We are fighting to end government corruption, to rid this country of foreign troops, and we want a return to sharia law,” said a Kandahar commander.
Nato’s reintegration group in Kabul acknowledges the insurgency is driven by local factors: inept governance, predatory politics, malign and manipulative power brokers, poverty and tribal feuding. “There will always be the hard core that will continue fighting for ideological reasons but there’s an awful lot of people who are tired of fighting and who we can bring in,” Major-General Phil Jones, the unit’s British commander, said.
Some analysts believe reintegration fails to address the underlying causes of the insurgency in thousands of villages that are among the worst afflicted. “Reintegration addresses the symptoms rather than the disease itself,” said Matt Waldman, a Harvard analyst.
•Several Nato soldiers were injured yesterday when insurgents fired rockets at Kandahar airfield, the Alliance’s main military base in southern Afghanistan, writes Richard Beeston in Kandahar.
Story here.