Gems, Timber and Jiziya: Pakistan's Taliban Harness Resources to Fund Jihad

The Taliban resurgence in Pakistan’s lawless provinces and its unhindered march towards the heartland of the restive country is fueled by an ever increasing economic life-line. Unlike Afghanistan’s Taliban, which depends on the poppy trade for revenues, the robustness of the Pakistan Taliban’s financial strength depends on a variety of sources, ranging from the timber trade, precious stone mining and now, the imposition of a religious/protection tax collected from minority religious communities.
 
The Islamabad administration has buckled under pressure from the Taliban, promulgating the Nizam-e-Adl (Islamic Jurisprudence) regulations in the Swat valley where the government has virtually lost control. The peace agreement gives the Taliban forces a massive opportunity to exploit the rich natural resources of Swat at will.
 
Before fighting broke out in Swat, one of the region’s main sources of revenue was a thriving tourist industry. Needless to say, there is no tourism in the region now and the Taliban have dismantled tourist resorts and tourism training facilities, auctioning off furniture, computers and building materials in Barabandai (The News [Islamabad], April 13). 
 
The multiple sources of Taliban income make the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) a resilient and well-armed group with an agenda of turning Pakistan into an Islamic state.  Observers fear the wealth at the disposal of Taliban will enable them to sustain their jihad activities in Pakistan and beyond.  
 
The exploitation of northwest Pakistan’s natural resources for organizational revenues started in April 2008, when Taliban militants took over the Ziarat marble quarry, a white marble mine in the Mohmand tribal district. Before the arrival of the Taliban, Islamabad had planned to modernize the marble mines at Ziarat as part of an effort to increase marble and granite exports to $500 million per year by 2013. Roughly one million tons of marble are extracted from FATA every year (Daily Times [Lahore], July 20, 2008). Since the Taliban takeover, the quarry has brought the Taliban tens of thousands of dollars. Buoyed by this success, the TTP began eying the emerald deposits of Swat.