After the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021 the Taliban seized control of the country. In response the International Monetary Fund and major international donors to the country blocked the Taliban’s access to billions of dollars in charitable bank accounts. More than half of Afghanistan’s annual $5 billion budget is from foreign aid. Despite its puritanical brand of Islam, the Taliban controls the world’s largest opium operation, earning about $460 million a year from taxes on the sale of heroin moving through their territories alone, the U.N. says.…
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