Cheap weapons, growing fears: Inside the Taliban’s drone campaign against Pakistan

Pakistan says it intercepted 23 suicide drones launched from Afghanistan into Pakistani airspace in September alone. Since the conflict began in February 2026, the Taliban have increasingly used drones to attack Pakistan, raising concerns in Islamabad.


Issued on: 14/10/2026 - 
By: Ershad ALIJANI / The FRANCE 24 Observers

Images of several drones that Pakistani forces said had been launched from Afghanistan and shot down in different parts of Pakistan, including the suburbs of the capital, Islamabad, on February 27, 2026. © Observers

The Pakistani army on September 23 said it had shot down at least eight fixed-wing drones in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, less than 1,000 metres from the Afghan border. It was the latest reported attempt by the Taliban to target Pakistani forces using this type of drone.

One of the drones that Pakistani forces said had been launched from Afghanistan was shot down on September 23 near the Torkham border crossing.

Since the conflict between Pakistan and the Taliban began in February of this year, the Taliban have deployed armed first-person-view (FPV) drones – small quadcopters carrying munitions such as mortar shells – to attack Pakistani positions near the border. They have also used larger, fixed-wing suicide drones equipped with more powerful engines, potentially capable of flying hundreds of kilometres.

Propaganda footage published by the Taliban showing FPV drone attacks on Pakistani positions near the Afghan border in October 2025.

On September 28, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said it had delivered a diplomatic protest note to the Taliban over what it described as "provocative incursions", citing 23 drones launched from Afghanistan into Pakistani airspace since the beginning of the month.

On March 13, 2026, Pakistan claimed to have shot down two Taliban drones near the capital, Islamabad.

From friends to foes

Once close allies, Pakistan and the Taliban entered into open conflict about eight months ago when Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif publicly declared that “relations with the Taliban had deteriorated into an ‘open war’.”

The conflict escalated after Pakistan began targeting positions of the Pakistani militant group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) inside Afghanistan. Also known as the Pakistani Taliban, the TTP is officially recognised as a terrorist organisation by multiple countries and international bodies, including the United Nations, Pakistan and the European Union.

The TTP has carried out attacks in Pakistan for nearly two decades and has long-standing ties with the Afghan Taliban, which Pakistan accuses of sheltering and supporting the group.

When Pakistan, which has aerial military superiority over Afghanistan, has struck suspected TTP positions deep inside Afghanistan, the Taliban has retaliated with ground attacks and drones.

On February 27, 2026, Afghanistan’s Taliban government claimed to have carried out drone attacks on the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. The same day, Pakistani sources published images of what they said were Taliban drones shot down in a suburb of the capital.

'Making a fixed wing drone is not that complicated anymore'

UAV expert Mark Grozel explains:

These drones are roughly two metres in size and could carry between half a kilogram and one kilogram of explosives. They have a very limited military effectiveness and are easy to intercept. They are slow and fly at low altitude. The difficulty is detecting them: they are hard to spot, but once detected, they are easy to shoot down.

There are multiple scenarios. One is that a foreign government supplies them. Or they could be, to some extent, homemade. Today, making a fixed-wing drone is not that complicated anymore.

Autopilot software that controls a drone’s trajectory is widely available.

On [the e-commerce site] Alibaba, you can easily buy components such as the engine and battery. The body could be made with a 3D printer, or from polystyrene or even balsa wood…

After examining photos and videos of drones that Pakistan’s army said it had intercepted, FRANCE 24 identified what appear to be DLE55 engines fitted to each of the suicide drones shown. These 55cc single piston engines and are commercially available online.

The DLE55 engine is available for purchase on the Chinese e-commerce platform Alibaba. © Observers

Despite their basic engines, small explosive payloads and simple radio navigation systems, these drones have a heavy psychological impact.

'Their main power is their psychological impact'

According to Grozel:
The strength of this kind of fixed-wing drones is that they are cheap to make. Any group with the resources, including the Taliban, can now produce them.

They allow you to tell your adversary: ‘I can threaten your infrastructure at any moment.’ If one hits a school or a fuel facility, the consequences could be catastrophic. Their main power is their psychological impact.

The Taliban’s drone attacks come amid a broader conflict between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban, fueled by the activities of the TTP.

Direct engagements between the TTP and Pakistani security forces have increased significantly since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, rising from 98 incidents in 2021 to 470 in 2024. Throughout 2025, regular clashes along the border reportedly resulted in approximately 4,000 deaths.

On September 18, 2026 a TTP suicide car bomb attack on a mosque killed 21 people in the Pakistani border city Kohat .

The roots of the Taliban–TTP alliance

Mukhtar Wafaei, an expert on the Taliban who specialises in Afghan affairs, explains how relations between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban deteriorated into military conflict.

To understand the current situation, we have to go back to the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s.

During those years, Afghan and Pakistani fighters were sent from religious schools in Pakistan to participate in the “jihad” against Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

These relationships were forged during that period and remained largely unquestioned until the September 11 attacks and the subsequent US invasion of Afghanistan.

After the collapse of the Taliban’s first government in 2001, Taliban leaders and members dispersed, with many seeking refuge in Pakistan’s border regions, including Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Waziristan and Balochistan.

The debris of a house destroyed by a Pakistani air strike in Afghanistan on September 21, 2026. According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), at least three civilians were killed in the attacks that day.

They maintained these long-standing cross-border relationships. In 2008, the Afghan Taliban expanded their presence across various parts of Afghanistan. Around the same time, several jihadist organisations operating in Pakistan, originating from the same tribal regions and carrying out violent attacks, came together under the TTP.

Another turning point came in 2021, when the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan. Taliban leaders who had been sheltered in safe houses in Pakistan belonging to the TTP, left for Afghanistan. Their Pakistani friends, allies and associates accompanied them to Kabul and also took refuge there.

Between late 2021 and mid-2022, Pakistan attempted to negotiate with the TTP. But after the group refused to disarm or accept Pakistan’s constitutional framework, it ordered its fighters to launch nationwide attacks on November 28, 2022. The Taliban claim the TTP is a Pakistani internal issue and deny any responsibility.

When diplomatic ultimatums failed to halt cross-border militant operations, Pakistan resorted to air strikes inside Afghanistan, prompting the Afghan Taliban to retaliate with attacks on Pakistani territory.

Made with Flourish • Create a scatter plot

Number of Afghan civilians killed in Pakistani air strikes between October 2025 and October 2026. Sources: United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and Amnesty International.

Pakistan also launched a mass expulsion campaign, with 2.39 million Afghans returning from Pakistan to Afghanistan over a period of more than two years.

Made with Flourish • Create a chart

The number of terrorist attacks in Pakistan (blue) and the number of civilians killed in these attacks (red) between 2008 and 2025. The TTP was responsible for most of the attacks during this period. Source: westpoint.edu

There is a very deep ideological relationship between the Afghan Taliban and the TTP rooted in the extremist Islamist religious schools in Pakistan. They share the same ideology, come from the same religious tradition and follow the same teachings. They can no longer be separated. They are effectively one group.

A few months after the Afghan Taliban returned to power, the TTP leader stated very clearly in Pashto that Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, meaning the Afghan Taliban, were one group. He said: “We are not two groups. We are one group, following one programme, one ideology and one method.”

This is particularly revealing because the TTP leader himself explicitly described the two movements as one.

 

Iran Faces Rising Threat From Within as Baluch Insurgency Escalates

By RFE/RL staff - Oct 18, 2026

• Armed Baluch groups have intensified deadly attacks on Iranian security forces in Sistan-Baluchistan.
• 
  
• Militant factions are increasingly coordinating their operations as Tehran faces mounting military pressure.
• 
  
• Longstanding ethnic and religious grievances threaten to deepen Iran’s internal security crisis.

Iran's vast and restive southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan, located along the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, has witnessed a deadly flare-up of violence in recent weeks.

Armed groups and Iranian security forces have clashed almost daily across the impoverished province, the site of a decades-long, low-level insurgency.

Separatist groups and Islamist militants in Sistan-Baluchistan, home to Iran's marginalized ethnic Baluch minority, are increasingly coordinating their efforts to challenge the Iranian state, experts say.

The intensifying insurgency has compounded the security threats facing Iran, which remains at war with the United States and Israel and braces for a possible resumption of major US combat operations.

"The renewed attacks in Sistan-Baluchistan come at a time when the Islamic Republic is facing unprecedented military and economic pressure," said Hamidreza Azizi, senior Iran analyst at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.

"What makes the situation more concerning for Tehran is the possibility that localized insurgent activity could become part of a broader security challenge," he added.

Spate Of Attacks

Baluch armed groups have claimed responsibility for a series of hit-and-run attacks, deadly roadside bombs, and shootings targeting the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the elite branch of Iran's armed forces, the Basij paramilitary force, and local police across the province in recent weeks.

On October 14, a police officer and local Basij commander were killed in separate attacks in the town of Mehrestan, Iranian media reported.

A day earlier, the IRGC said one of its members was killed after a hostage-taking attempt triggered clashes in Zahedan, the provincial capital of Sistan-Baluchistan. Also on October 13, gun battles between gunmen and the IRGC broke out in the town of Taftan.

In response, the authorities have stepped up security operations in the province, including preemptive raids on suspected insurgent cells, underscoring the growing threat.

Iran also executed a prominent Baluch militant on October 12. Omar Dorostaran had been convicted of armed rebellion, membership in a terrorist group, and complicity in an armed uprising.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei on October 12 claimed that "terrorist groups" operating in the area were acting on "plans devised by Israel and the United States to destabilize the country's borders."

Azizi of the International Crisis Group said Iranian officials increasingly fear that their adversaries may try to exploit existing ethnic and political grievances to open new fronts inside the country.

"Tehran appears determined to prevent a longstanding security problem from developing into a more serious vulnerability during a potential new war," he said.

Sistan-Baluchistan, Iran's second largest province and roughly the same size as Syria, is particularly strategic and sensitive.

It borders Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and Pakistan's Balochistan Province, which has also been the scene of a decades-long insurgency.

Sistan-Baluchistan is also home to Chabahar, Iran's only port with direct access to the open ocean. It allows Iran to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, a major flashpoint in the war with the United States and Israel.

Militants Merge

In December 2025, four separate armed Baluch groups joined forces under the Mobarizoun Popular Front, signaling closer coordination among militant factions.

The umbrella group includes Jaish al-Adl, a Baluch separatist militant group that is designated as a terrorist organization by Iran and the United States.

Believed to be operating out of Pakistan, Jaish al-Adl is the most potent Baluch armed group fighting Tehran. Iran has accused the United States and Israel of arming the group.

"The Iranian government is currently facing multiple pressures at home and abroad, and naturally, armed groups may have come to the conclusion that they have found a good opportunity to expand their operations," said Fatemeh Aman, a US-based Iran analyst.

"If these attacks become coordinated, sustained, and continuous, they could pose a more serious security challenge for the government," Aman told RFE/RL's Radio Farda.

Experts say armed groups are exploiting the longstanding grievances of the Baluch minority, many of whom are Sunni Muslims in Shi'a-majority Iran. The group has long faced disproportionate discrimination and violence at the hands of the authorities.

Baluch make up around 5 percent of Iran's population of some 90 million. But they account for around 20 percent of all executions in the country.

During the nationwide anti-establishment protests that rocked Iran in 2022, Sistan-Baluchistan was the scene of the deadliest government crackdown. On September 30 that year, referred to as "Bloody Friday," nearly 100 protesters were gunned down.

Poverty, religious and ethnic discrimination, and lack of political representation have "created a basis for deep dissatisfaction in the province," said Aman.

"The government's largely security-based approach to the demands of the Baloch people has also contributed to the spread of this distrust," she added.

By RFE/RL

Afghanistan And The Terrorism Question Before The United Nations – OpEd

Photo Credit: Zarif Amir, Pexels

October 5, 2026

By Dr. Sahibzada Muhammad Usman


Key Takeaways:

A closed Security Council meeting on Sept. 16, 2026, days before the General Debate, was briefed that terrorist groups in Afghanistan still threaten the region; France pressed the Taliban on security as well as rights, and Afghanistan’s own envoy called terrorism a serious threat.

The piece says the worry is wider than Pakistan’s TTP-sanctuary claims, which Kabul denies, and points to the February Monitoring Team report, the secretary-general’s reporting, and the Sept. 11 counterterrorism session.

The author’s ask is measurable checks on movement, recruitment, finance, and training, plus Pakistani intelligence through U.N. channels, not isolation of Afghans.

At a highly significant diplomatic juncture, Afghanistan is back at the heart of international security issues. The United Nations Security Council held a closed-door meeting on the situation in Afghanistan on 16 September 2026, just days before world leaders will arrive in New York for the 81st United Nations General Assembly’s General Debate. The timing matters. No longer is Afghanistan only talked of as a humanitarian crisis or uneventful political transition. Terrorist groups have become a recurring theme in debates on security in the region and indeed in the international community. The Security Council meeting record shows that the Council was briefed separately on Afghanistan and the UNAMA briefing explicitly stated that Afghanistan remains the victim of the threats of terrorist groups and the situation in the region and international peace and security is at threat.

That is the wording which needs to be watched as it takes the dialogue beyond bilateral Pakistan Afghanistan blame game. Islamabad has also repeatedly alleged the presence of armed groups, especially the Tehrik e Taliban Pakistan, in Afghanistan, which it alleges provide them with sanctuaries and/or operational networks. Kabul has denied Pakistan’s charges and said that the Afghan land was not being used to strike other nations. But the worry over the terror activity within Afghanistan is not restricted to Pakistan. There is institutional support for international monitoring of the security situation through the most recent reporting schedule of the SG, the Monitoring Team in August, and the Taliban sanctions monitoring report.
A Concern That Extends Beyond Pakistan

France has added important diplomatic weight to this discussion. During earlier The position can be reviewed in the official Security Council transcript. At the 16 September meeting, France again pressed the Afghan authorities to demonstrate credible action on security concerns, alongside human rights and political commitments. The wider Council discussion therefore illustrates something significant. Concern about terrorism linked with Afghanistan is not merely a Pakistani talking point. It has entered the vocabulary of permanent and elected Security Council members.


This distinction should shape the international discussion. It is built through convergence between national evidence and independent international assessments. The February Monitoring Team report and the earlier Secretary General report on Afghanistan show that the United Nations has continued to track extremist networks and security risks. Even Afghanistan’s representative at the United Nations stated during the September meeting that terrorism remained a serious threat and referred to Monitoring Team findings concerning numerous terrorist organisations. His Security Council statement also argued that counterterrorism concerns must be addressed through accountable governance and respect for international law.

There is also a larger lesson emerging from the Council’s recent counterterrorism discussions. On 11 September, France convened a Security Council meeting marking twenty five years since the attacks of 2001. The Council terrorism debate addressed changing terrorist methods, recruitment, financing and the exploitation of new technologies. The accompanying Council briefing analysis recorded negotiations in which the continued presence of terrorist groups in Afghanistan became part of the discussion. This places Afghanistan within a much wider security problem involving cross border networks, digital recruitment, terrorist financing, foreign fighters and increasingly decentralised extremist organisations.

Why UNGA 81 Creates a Diplomatic Opening

The coming General Assembly week gives this issue additional importance. The 81st session formally opened on 8 September and its General Debate begins on 22 September, according to the United Nations UNGA guide. The UNGA high level program confirms that heads of state, governments and senior delegations will converge in New York during the same week. Other international institutions are organising their priorities around this diplomatic gathering, including the World Health Organization program and the European Union UNGA agenda. Afghanistan therefore enters the high level week with its security situation already fresh in diplomats’ minds.

For Pakistan, this creates an opportunity to internationalise the discussion without turning it into a campaign against Afghanistan or the Afghan people. The distinction is essential. Pakistan’s argument should remain focused on specific terrorist organisations, their leadership structures, financing, movement, recruitment and alleged operational facilities rather than treating Afghanistan itself as the adversary. Evidence presented through multilateral institutions carries greater credibility than sweeping political allegations. The Security Council September forecast already identified cross border militancy as an important regional security issue and noted Pakistani allegations regarding TTP activity as well as the Taliban’s rejection of them. The UN Web TV record also provides a public record of the September Afghanistan discussion.
From Diplomatic Attention to Measurable Action

What ultimately matters is verification. The international community should seek measurable indicators showing whether organisations operating within Afghanistan are losing freedom of movement, recruitment capacity, financing, training infrastructure and the ability to plan external attacks. Afghanistan’s authorities, for their part, have an opportunity to demonstrate through verifiable measures that their territory will not be used against neighbouring states. Pakistan should similarly continue sharing actionable intelligence through appropriate international and bilateral mechanisms rather than expecting political statements alone to resolve the problem.


The diplomatic environment is therefore becoming more consequential. France holds the Security Council presidency during September, as reflected in the Council program of work, and its recent interventions have placed terrorism in Afghanistan within a broader international security framework. The Security Council’s monitoring architecture, UNAMA reporting, sanctions mechanisms and the political visibility of UNGA 81 together create a moment when evidence can be translated into sustained diplomatic attention. The purpose should not be isolation for its own sake. It should be accountability and measurable counterterrorism action capable of protecting Afghans, Pakistanis and the wider region.

As the Security Council declared years ago, international terrorism represents a challenge to all states and all humanity. That principle remains highly relevant today.

“Acts of international terrorism constitute a challenge to all States and to all of humanity.”
RecommendationsPakistan should present verifiable intelligence through established United Nations mechanisms consistently.

Regional states should strengthen intelligence sharing and coordinated border security arrangements.

UN monitoring bodies should regularly assess terrorist mobility recruitment and financing.
Afghan authorities should demonstrate measurable action against every designated terrorist organisation.

International engagement should connect diplomatic normalization with verifiable counterterrorism commitments.

About Dr. Sahibzada Muhammad Usman
Dr. Sahibzada Muhammad Usman holds a PhD (Italy) in geopolitics and is currently doing a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Shandong University, China. Dr. Usman is the author of a book titled ‘Different Approaches on Central Asia: Economic, Security, and Energy’, published by Lexington, USA.
View all posts by Dr. Sahibzada Muhammad Usman →

Afghanistan Reduced Opium Production: What Was The Impact On Drug Trafficking? – Analysis

Cultivating poppies in Afghanistan for opium. Photo Credit: Tasnim News Agency.


September 28, 2026

By Geopolitical Monitor
By Damián Jacubovich

Key Takeaways:

UNODC figures show Afghan opium poppy area falling from ~232,000 ha (2022) after the Taliban ban to 10,200 ha in 2025 (~296 tonnes potential output; Alcis/EUDA ~414 tonnes). Farm sales income is estimated at $134 million in 2025, down 48% from 2024; drought also played a role.

The author says that does not prove the world heroin market shrank: EUDA cites ~12,000 tonnes of estimated Afghan stocks, Myanmar area up 17% (output ~flat), and ~9,116 ha of poppy reported in Balochistan—hectares are not proven replacement tonnes.

Criminal profits cannot be read off farm losses: revenue, cost, and margins differ by stage; groups may tap stocks, new sources, or other drugs. Relocation is a hypothesis to test, not a finding.

Afghanistan reduced the area devoted to opium poppy cultivation from approximately 232,000 hectares in 2022 to 10,200 in 2025. The scale of this decline raises three related questions that require different answers.

First, can state intervention drastically reduce a major source of drug production? In Afghanistan, the answer is yes. Second, has that reduction produced an effective contraction in the international opium and heroin market? Large accumulated stockpiles and the possible emergence of alternative suppliers make the answer less certain. And third, what consequences has the ban had for criminal organizations’ revenues and profitability, and what can we infer about drug trafficking globally?

Did the ban reduce opium production in Afghanistan?

In April 2022, the Taliban authorities banned opium poppy cultivation. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Afghanistan cultivated approximately 232,000 hectares in 2022 and produced an estimated 6,200 tonnes of opium. Cultivated area fell to 10,800 hectares in 2023, rose to 12,800 in 2024 and declined again to 10,200 in 2025. UNODC estimated potential production at 296 tonnes in 2025. Drought and crop failures also contributed to the latest decline, so not every change can be attributed exclusively to the ban.

The contraction is unmistakable, although estimates differ. The European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA) cites an Alcis estimate of 414 tonnes of Afghan opium production in 2025, compared with UNODC’s 296 tonnes. Comparisons over time should therefore use a consistent statistical series.

The economic consequences are also clear at farm level. UNODC estimates that farmers’ income from opium sales to traders fell from $260 million in 2024 to $134 million in 2025, a decline of 48 percent.


The answer to our first question is clear: following the ban, opium cultivation in Afghanistan fell dramatically. Afghan farmers also suffered a substantial loss of income. Yet their losses do not establish that international intermediaries and distributors experienced an equivalent decline. A smaller harvest does not necessarily mean that less opium is available on the market.
Did the fall in Afghan production contract the international opium and heroin market?

Cultivation is only the first link in a longer commercial chain involving traders, processors, transporters, intermediaries, and distributors. The market impact of lower harvests also depends on accumulated stocks, alternative suppliers, prices, and demand.

Stockpiles create a time lag between production and supply. The European Drug Report 2026 cites an Alcis estimate of approximately 12,000 tonnes of opium stored in Afghanistan in 2025. This is an estimate, not a physical inventory. EUDA reports that stockpiles, processing and adulteration practices, and supply management by trafficking networks have helped sustain heroin availability in Europe despite the decline in Afghan cultivation.

Stocks can sustain sales without equivalent new production, but they may eventually be depleted, become more expensive, or cease to be accessible to particular networks. The evolution of supply as these stocks diminish will be essential to evaluating the ban’s lasting market effects.

Alternative producers present a different question. UNODC reports that Myanmar’s cultivated area increased by 17 percent, from 45,200 hectares in 2024 to 53,100 in 2025. Its estimated opium output, however, rose by only 1 percent because yields fell. Internal conflict, displacement, and economic difficulties also affect cultivation there. These figures establish expansion in another country, not that the Afghan ban caused it or that Myanmar has replaced Afghan supply.


Pakistan offers a different kind of evidence. EUDA cites satellite analysis suggesting approximately 9,116 hectares of poppy cultivation in Balochistan in 2025, potentially rivaling Afghanistan’s 2025 output. This suggests a possible alternative source of supply, but hectares are not tonnes: neither the volume produced nor effective replacement of Afghan supply has been established.

We must distinguish three propositions: simultaneous expansion elsewhere, displacement causally linked to the Afghan ban, and actual replacement of supply. Each requires different evidence. The answer to the second question remains open: the production decline is established, but the extent and duration of its effects on the international opium and heroin market are not. Even if that market contracts, we still need to establish who bears the economic losses—and which activities, if any, take their place.
What happened to criminal organizations’ revenues and profitability—and what does this tell us about global drug trafficking?

This question brings me back to a hypothesis I began developing in 2014 while examining changes in Latin American drug trafficking and its expansion into Argentina. I borrowed a concept from the economics of globalization: relocation.

My hypothesis involved two mechanisms. State pressure—stronger controls, enforcement, and higher operating costs—could encourage certain activities to move to territories with lower risks. Expanding demand could also attract organizations, alter routes and draw previously peripheral territories into new consumer markets. Relocation could therefore reflect both a response to state intervention and the search for new commercial opportunities.

Afghanistan provides a case in which to investigate this hypothesis, but the available evidence does not yet confirm it. The central question is what happens to economic opportunities when a major source of production shrinks. Some may disappear permanently; others may be taken up by new suppliers, organizations, or activities. Relocation is one possible mechanism of that transformation, and its existence and scale must be demonstrated case by case.

Criminal organizations are not interchangeable with the markets in which they operate. An intervention may dismantle a network without eliminating consumer demand or the opportunities that attracted other actors. Some organizations may lose their business; others may draw on stockpiles, find suppliers, or diversify. There is no single global drug-trafficking organization making coordinated decisions.

The economic terms also matter. Revenue is the money received from sales; profit is what remains after costs; profitability relates profit to the resources required. Supply contraction can affect prices, costs, and margins differently at each stage. Prices and traded volumes may help estimate revenue, but profit also requires information on costs, and profitability requires relating profit to the resources employed. Higher heroin prices could increase an intermediary’s revenue without raising profit if procurement and operating costs also rise.

The documented fall in Afghan farmers’ income cannot simply be transferred to international traffickers’ accounts. Nor would a contraction in the heroin market and falling profits among organizations involved in it establish an equivalent decline in global drug-trafficking profits. Different organizations, substances, and markets may experience opposite outcomes; there is no single profitability figure for the entire illicit drug economy.


Testing the broader impact would require establishing which organizations lost income and profit, whether those losses persisted, whether other actors took their place, and whether activities shifted to other markets. Illicit markets do not provide conventional financial statements, but wholesale and retail prices, traded volumes, seizures interpreted alongside other indicators, estimated margins, financial flows, and changes in distribution may offer partial evidence.

Consumer behavior matters too. Reduced heroin availability could lead some people to consume less and others to turn to different substances. EUDA warns that synthetic opioids and stimulants warrant monitoring as possible market shifts; it does not establish that widespread substitution has already occurred because of the Afghan ban. A smaller heroin market could coexist with growth elsewhere, but that possibility remains to be tested.

The ban’s impact on the revenues and profitability of organizations involved in opium and heroin remains uncertain. Establishing its consequences for drug trafficking globally requires an even broader investigation.
Three Questions, Three Different Answers

The first question has a clear answer: state intervention can drastically reduce a major source of drug production. Afghanistan’s cultivation figures demonstrate this.

The second remains open. Stockpiles have cushioned the impact of smaller harvests, while alternative suppliers, prices, and consumption will help determine whether the international opium and heroin market undergoes a lasting contraction.

The third demands a wider inquiry. Even if that market contracts, we must establish which organizations lose revenue and profit, which adapt and whether those losses translate into a reduction in the illicit drug economy as a whole. The outcome could be lasting contraction, partial adaptation, or a transformation of criminal activities. Relocation is one mechanism to investigate, not a conclusion to assume.

Afghanistan has demonstrated that opium production can be drastically reduced. What remains to be demonstrated is whether that reduction also shrinks the market and, beyond it, the economic opportunities and profits of criminal organizations.

This article was published by Geopolitical Monitor.com


About Geopolitical Monitor
Geopoliticalmonitor.com is an open-source intelligence collection and forecasting service, providing research, analysis and up to date coverage on situations and events that have a substantive impact on political, military and economic affairs.
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The Secret Houthi-U.S. Deal That Could Push Saudi Arabia Back to Beijing

By Simon Watkins - Sep 21, 2026

• The Houthis could further escalate Red Sea disruptions.
• 
  
• Washington has reportedly opened direct talks with the Houthis while declining Saudi requests for military intervention, potentially complicating Riyadh’s security relationship with the United States.
• 
  
• Growing Chinese influence around the Red Sea and Indian Ocean could ultimately encourage Riyadh to deepen its ties with Beijing.

Back at the start of the U.S.’s ‘Operation Epic Fury’, OilPrice.com predicted three courses of action that Iran would take as it moved through the conflict escalation gears. First, most obviously, although apparently not to President Donald Trump’s team, was to close the Strait of Hormuz to cause oil, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and refined products prices to soar -- check. Second, was to launch attacks on Saudi Arabian oil infrastructure via the Tehran-backed Yemeni Houthis to further inflate energy prices and undermine the idea that U.S. allies in the Middle East could rely on Washington to protect them from Iran -- check. Third, was the blockade of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the other critical regional transit route for the world’s oil, LNG and refined products, to ramp up both the higher energy price- and regional insecurity-pressure still further. This last element has not yet been fully activated, but it is not far off. So, where do Iran and its Houthi protagonists go from here?

Within the next few days, the Houthis are likely to ‘officially’ close off the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to all ‘enemy’ shipping rather than to just the Saudis, as has been the case, a very senior energy source who works closely with Iran’s Petroleum Ministry exclusively told OilPrice.com over the weekend. “That will mean Iran effectively holds hostage up to 42% of the world’s crude oil flows [the Strait of Hormuz roughly 30% of oil, and Bab el-Mandeb about 12%] historically flowed on a historical basis and up to 30% of its LNG flows [Strait of Hormuz roughly 20% and Bab el-Mandeb around 10%], and the figures for refined products are at least as disturbing,” he said. Indeed, before the current blockades, the Strait of Hormuz accounted for up to 5.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of fully refined petroleum products including diesel, jet fuel, and petrochemical feedstocks like naphtha that were already cracked at Middle Eastern mega-refineries before entering maritime transit lanes. Meanwhile, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait -- the key gateway into southern Europe from the Gulf of Aden through the Red Sea and then Suez Canal -- handled up to 2.6 million bpd. “The soaring prices of many of these refined products -- notably diesel and jet fuel -- are possibly even more serious than for oil and LNG because Europe shut down many of its own ageing refineries over the years, so it relies on importing pre-cracked, finished diesel and jet fuel directly coming from the Middle East through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait,” he added. The recent seizures by the Houthis of several key islands in the Red Sea -- including the centrally-positioned Perim Island in the mouth of the Strait between Yemen and Djibouti -- give the group and Iran far greater leverage over the Red Sea/Suez Canal transit route than they had before. In fact, International Monetary Fund (IMF) PortWatch data shows that overall shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait has dropped nearly 90% below normal averages, even without the Houthis declaring a general blockade on it. “Using the Houthis on the Bab el-Mandeb has been a clever move from Tehran because it stretches already-stretched U.S. forces, and leaves Washington’s previous assurances that it would look after its allies in the region looking like hot air,” he highlighted.

Staggeringly for many observers -- not least, the Saudis -- came recent news that not only had the U.S. directly refused to help the country militarily against the latest Houthi, and by extension Iranian, threats but also that Washington was in direct contact with the Houthi leaders. Confirmed by OilPrice.com through Iranian and Washington sources with close knowledge of the matter, just over a week ago Trump refused to authorise direct U.S. air strikes to halt the Houthi advance along the Red Sea coast when asked to do so by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) in two separate telephone calls on 10 September. This was the day the Houthis completed their capture of the strategic port city of Mokha and were pushing quickly across several Red Coast targets. Trump instead sent CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper to Riyadh for emergency intelligence-sharing coordination and has still not authorised any military assistance for the Saudis. Given Trump’s legendary long memory when it comes to grudges, perhaps the refusal was partly because MbS had persistently refused to take the telephone calls from former U.S. President Joe Biden in March 2022, when Washington desperately needed help from the Saudis to help bring spiralling oil prices down after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as analysed in full in my latest book. Perhaps it was due to ‘assurances’ from the Houthis that they would not attack U.S. vessels in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Such assurances were reiterated during the direct U.S.–Houthi negotiations that took place at the U.S. Embassy in Muscat, Oman, mediated by the Omani government, over the weekend of 12–13 September 2026, with the specific face-to-face session occurring on 13 September. “Up until then, the Saudis still thought the U.S. had its back,” a senior source who works closely with the European Union’s (E.U.) security complex exclusively told OilPrice.com last week. “After that, it [Saudi Arabia] knows it’s on its own now,” he added.

Widening the current military campaign against Saudi Arabia is certainly another of the next steps the Houthis will take, if it gets the chance, according to the Iranian source. This may come sooner rather than later, given Saudi plans -- discussed again over the weekend -- to form a standalone 14-country task force called the Multinational Maritime Defense Coalition (MMDC), which will also include elements of the recently formed Mecca Joint Defence Agreement (MJDA) framework analysed by OilPrice.com. The MMDC comprises MJDA countries (Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey), Egypt, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan, Yemen (the anti-Houthi Presidential Leadership Council), Djibouti, Somalia, Sudan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria. The inclusion here of Djibouti may not be helpful to the Saudis because -- as also examined in my latest book on the new global oil market order -- Iran’s main superpower backer, China, has a vice-like grip over the country due to predatory loans connected to its ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ multi-generational power-grab project. In fact, following Chinese investment of around US$14 billion in the country (totalling over 70% of Djibouti’s debt, and making it the country’s biggest debtor), Beijing in 2017 created its first overseas military base there. Given that Chinese vessels remain largely unaffected on the orders of Iran from the current blockades on the Strait of Hormuz or the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, it appears that Djibouti’s involvement in the MMDC will just be part of a balancing act geared toward protecting Chinese economic self-interest, rather than a genuine geopolitical desire to undermine Iran’s strategic goals. Consequently, anything China does in this ‘alliance’ is likely to be confined to quietly pressuring Tehran to tell the Houthis to keep the disruptions selective.

Worse still for Saudi Arabia’s plans to quell the Houthis threat is that Beijing’s highly integrated BRI-related economic and logistics corridor runs all the way from the Horn of Africa to the wider western Indian Ocean, and into another of Riyadh’s ‘partners’ in the MJDA -- Pakistan. Djibouti is not just home to a massive Chinese military base but also acts as the maritime centre for Ethiopia, with Beijing owning the US$4 billion Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway essential for Ethiopia’s exports. To the south of Ethiopia is Kenya, which China has established as its primary commercial maritime gateway into the African continent through the building of the Mombasa Port Expansion project and the Lamu Deep-Water Port.  And northeast of Djibouti across the Arabian Sea is the crown jewel in China’s maritime choke point strategy -- Pakistan’s Gwadar Port. As thoroughly detailed in my latest book, Gwadar is directly tied to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, officially a commercial deep-water port operated by China Overseas Ports Holding Company, but it is heavily constructed to act as a dual-use facility capable of resupplying, repairing, and docking the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s capital ships. Moreover, in each of these areas there is also ample opportunity for the Houthis to hook up with fellow like-minded Islamic extremist terrorists too, thus creating a force multiplier effect across the region. Aside from the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan operating widely across that country, Al-Qaeda-affiliated extremist group Al-Shabaab is based in Somalia with a very broad reach into Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Sudan. Looking at all of these factors, and given the strong relationship that had built up between Saudi Arabia and China in the years following the end of the 2014-2016 Oil Price War, it may well be that the key victory for the Houthis to come will be a switch back in Riyadh’s primary geopolitical alliance to China, and away from the U.S

By Simon Watkins for Oilprice.com

GENDER APARTHEID

Plight Of Afghans Going ‘From Bad To Worse’


A family collects water from a river in a village in Kunar province, Afghanistan.

 Photo Credit: UNICEF/Muzamel Azizi

September 10, 2026
By UN News


Key Takeaways:

UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk says life in Afghanistan has worsened since the Taliban returned in 2021, with poverty rising and daily rights abuses while global attention fades.

Restrictions hit education, work, movement, and public life; the UN cites arrests over dress, beards, and music, plus media crackdowns, punishment of former opponents and minorities, and at least 449 corporal punishments in the first half of the year.

Women face what Türk called “gender apartheid,” including more than two million barred from secondary and higher education and exclusion from UN premises; more than 400,000 Afghans have been forcibly returned as humanitarian need remains huge and aid shrinks.

Since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, the plight of Afghans has only deteriorated, with millions impoverished while authorities violate basic human rights daily.

“Today, the plight of many in Afghanistan is going from bad to worse,” stressed the UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk.

“Yet, it seems the world has forgotten and abandoned the people of Afghanistan to a plight deepening by the day,” he told journalists in Geneva. “The silence is deafening.”

Scaling up the oppression

Mr. Türk deplored the ongoing restrictions cutting severely into education, employment, freedom of movement, and access to public life.

Notably, both women and men are being arrested by the Taliban’s Office for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, primarily for alleged violations of strict dress codes, beard length, and the playing of, or listening to, music.

Human rights violations against former adversaries of the Taliban during the long war that followed the allied invasion of 2001 in response to the 9/11 attacks on the US and restrictions against religious minorities – including Shi’a and Ismaili communities – continue to be documented.

Censorship of the media, temporary closures of media outlets and arrests of journalists also continue.

At least 449 men and women were subjected to corporal punishment by the de facto authorities in the first half of the year, according to the UN.

‘Gender apartheid’

Women, in particular, are facing the brunt of the Taliban rule.

Since 2021, over two million Afghan girls and women have been denied access to secondary and higher education.

Fresh decrees issued by the de facto authorities this year also make it more difficult for a woman to separate from a spouse and implicitly authorise child marriage and violence against women and children.

Women are also being excluded from politics. Mr. Türk condemned the “absolute absence of women in any public decision-making fora.”

A year ago, Taliban leaders restricted Afghan women – including UN staff, contractors and visitors – from entering the United Nations’ own premises across the country.

“Such restrictions imposed on women and girls – which amount to gender apartheid – have no place in any society,” the OHCHR chief underscored.
Forced return

At the same time, Afghans who had fled to neighbouring countries are facing growing hostility from their hosts abroad while forced returns continue.

According to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) more than 400,000 Afghans have been forcibly returned, mainly from Iran and Pakistan, but also from Türkiye, Tajikistan, and EU Member States.

“Many are forced to enter a country where they have never even stepped foot, and where they will face deep poverty, and inadequate food, clean water, and access to healthcare, education and employment,” Mr. Türk said.


He pointed to the estimated 21.9 million people, or about 45 per cent of the population, who require humanitarian aid, while foreign aid inflows are “[trickling] dry”.

“I implore all States to reconsider their actions, and to put the lives of the suffering population first,” he stressed.

25 Years of War Was the Exact Wrong Response to 9/11

Stop throwing money at a broken, destructive war machine. Stop threatening and blockading our neighbors. Close overseas bases and bring our troops home. Tax the wealthy and start rebuilding our country.


Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, President George W. Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Myers walk toward reporters after conferring together at the President’s ranch August 23, 2004 in Crawford Texas.

(Photo by Duane A. Laverty-Pool/Getty Images)



Medea Benjamin

Nicolas J.S. Davies
Sep 09, 2026

Common Dreams

The lesson of 9/11 should be that war is not the answer to any of the problems facing the United States. After inflicting violence and chaos on country after country for twenty-five years in a “global war on terror” that has evolved into a Zionist genocide and a revived Cold War against Russia and China, the widespread public opposition to Trump’s war on Iran suggests that most Americans have finally learned that lesson.

Unfortunately, powerful sections of our corrupt business and political elites have not.

Most Americans old enough to remember September 11, 2001, can still recall the horrifying images played endlessly on our TV screens as the scale of the mass murder became clear. But we also remember something else: the sinking feeling that the hopes and dreams of billions of people, in the US and around the world, would be pushed to the back-burner for the foreseeable future, as our leaders and corporate media all too predictably embraced a new agenda of revenge, fear-mongering, jingoism and military violence.

As Rumsfeld made clear to his subordinates from the outset, the 9/11 crisis provided an open-ended pretext for endless wars against enemies who had nothing to do with the attacks...

We found out later that only hours after the attacks—less than six hours after the first plane struck the World Trade Center and barely five hours after the Pentagon was hit—the planning for America’s military response to the 9/11 massacre was already under way.

At 2:40 pm, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld convened a meeting at the Pentagon. Notes taken by Undersecretary Stephen Cambone, later obtained by CBS News, recorded Rumsfeld demanding the “best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H.”—meaning Saddam Hussein—“at the same time” as Osama bin Laden. Then came the chilling instruction: “Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.”

Twenty-five years later, we can look back and see how the US government used September 11 to unleash a crusade of violence, war crimes and chaos across the world. Experts like Nuremberg prosecutor Ben Ferencz and military historian Michael Howard warned from the beginning that declaring a “war on terror” made no sense and would make matters worse.

They were right, of course. But when the State Department’s annual Patterns of Global Terrorism report for 2004 showed an unprecedented increase in global terrorism following the US invasion of Iraq, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice simply cancelled and discontinued the report, replacing it with a new one with different criteria to prevent comparison with previous years.

But, as Rumsfeld made clear to his subordinates from the outset, the 9/11 crisis provided an open-ended pretext for endless wars against enemies who had nothing to do with the attacks, and for the remilitarization of the United States after the small reduction in its military spending after the end of the Cold War.

Total US military spending for the past 25 years has exceeded $21 trillion (in 2024 dollars), surpassing the combined spending of the other 18 largest military powers in the world. During that time, China has built a whole new civilization and infrastructure, and leapfrogged the US economy to become the world leader in clean energy, high-speed rail and technological sectors in which the US was once preeminent.

Both Democrats and Republicans are responsible for these counter-productive choices, and the appalling human costs of these wars on the countries the United States has attacked, bombed or invaded make this an especially atrocious way to squander our nation’s wealth.

The history of the United States during this period calls to mind an old Greek myth. Croesus, the famously wealthy king of Lydia, asked the Oracle at Delphi what would happen if he invaded Persia. The Oracle told him, “If you cross the Halys river, a great empire will fall.” Encouraged, Croesus launched the invasion. But he lost the war, and the empire that fell was his own.

In pursuing their global imperial ambitions, our leaders and ruling classes have discounted and betrayed the real sources of America’s prosperity and security: the well-being of the American people and peaceful relations with our neighbors around the world.

They have led us into war, poverty and extreme inequality, and hollowed out a system of government that was slowly becoming more democratic. At home, decades of political struggle by labor, civil rights and other social movements produced enormous advances, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, major investments in public infrastructure and education, and a highly progressive tax system—with the top income tax rate at 91% until 1963—that helped finance those public goods and narrow the gap between rich and poor.

Contrary to the “End of History” theory embraced by many policymakers after the Cold War, and Margaret Thatcher’s famous insistence that “there is no alternative” to the extreme neoliberal capitalism that she and Ronald Reagan ushered in, societies always have political and economic alternatives. It is only a transparently self-serving choice by America’s corrupt ruling classes that saddles us with a system that keeps all decision-making power in their own hands in order to build their own wealth to the detriment of the country we all share.

We can see one alternative today in New York City, where Mayor Zohran Mamdani is pursuing a different set of priorities: expanding free childcare, making major investments in affordable housing, improving public transportation, and freezing rents for tenants in rent-stabilized apartments. Electoral politics can be part of the solution, but only if it reflects what ordinary people really want, instead of limited choices between oligarchic “lesser evils.”

Americans are demanding a renewal of social progress, with universal healthcare, quality public education, and all the things we need but can’t afford as long as this bloated, destructive war machine remains our government’s top priority. As Martin Luther King lamented in 1967, “I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube.”

Twenty-five years is a long time to keep moving in the wrong direction, especially when that direction involves endless war and the destruction of other countries. We are a long way from where most Americans would like our country to be. But we have a pretty good idea of what is wrong and what we need to do:

Stop throwing money at a broken, destructive war machine. Stop threatening and blockading our neighbors. Close overseas bases and bring our troops home. Tax the wealthy. Start rebuilding our country, and replace war and militarism with cooperation and problem solving. Take public ownership and responsibility for things we all need and use, like education, healthcare, housing, infrastructure, and utilities. Abolish ICE, and other militarized institutions that waste our national resources and do not serve the public good. Insist that the military be scaled back to its legitimate role of defending the United States against a possible, but very unlikely, foreign military attack.

If we have truly learned the lesson of the past twenty-five years, then we must translate it into policies that reflect that. The real test is not whether we can finally see what went wrong after 9/11. It is whether we are able to change course.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Medea Benjamin
Medea Benjamin is co-founder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace. She is the co-author, with Nicolas J.S. Davies, of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, available from OR Books in November 2022. Other books include, "Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran" (2018); "Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection" (2016); "Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control" (2013); "Don't Be Afraid Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart" (1989), and (with Jodie Evans) "Stop the Next War Now" (2005).

Full Bio >

Nicolas J.S. Davies
Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist and a researcher with CODEPINK. He is the co-author, with Medea Benjamin, of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, available from OR Books in November 2022, and the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.
Full Bio >

Revealed: The shocking reason Trump is dismantling America’s spy agencies

U.S. President Donald Trump and John Ratcliffe, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), speak as they depart after a Cabinet meeting at Camp David in Thurmont, Maryland, U.S., July 31, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/Pool

Sarah K. Burris

September 09, 2026

ALTERNET

As the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks approaches, President Donald Trump has decided to overhaul the post-9/11 overhaul of the intelligence community, which he has seen as his enemy for so long.

Trump has held a notable hostility toward the intel community since his first term, when he learned that he was included in investigations around 2016 Russian meddling in the election. Trump has a belief that officials investigated him, specifically, and leaked damaging information about him. That paranoia that the "deep state" is quietly leaking things about him and his Cabinet has only deepened in his second term.

National Public Radio reported on Wednesday that Trump's attitudes toward the intelligence community are now leading to changes that don't make the U.S. safer; rather, they make Trump feel better personally.

Ex-CIA officer John Sipher told NPR that when he was working at the agency, he spent much of his time focusing on Russia, but after the U.S. was attacked in 2001, the community shifted to crafting new technologies, expanding data collection, improving communications and using drones and other tools to track terrorist networks.

He explained that all of those things helped in locating Osama bin Laden and bringing down al-Qaeda and ISIL.

"Frankly, tracking and hunting terrorists, finding people, finding a needle in a haystack was not something that we trained for," said Sipher.

When the Department of Homeland Security was created, it became one of the largest departments in the U.S. government, second only to the Pentagon.

Trump appears readying to dismantle that. He portrays national security and intelligence officials as corrupt actors working against him. Critics say that after decades of work, Trump is tearing it down without any plan to replace it. He's now installing loyalists with little experience into key positions, including Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon, Kash Patel at the FBI and John Ratcliffe at the CIA. They are all more likely to tell Trump what he wants to hear rather than provide an independent assessment.

John Feeley, the former US ambassador to Panama, told The Guardian last month about an incident in which he first entered Trump's office, where the president demanded to know what Panama did for the United States. Feeley walked through all the ways that the East Coast is able to purchase affordable goods because the Panama Canal has ships that can shuttle goods from one hemisphere to the other more easily.

He recalled Trump's response was "Huh... Who knew?"

"I kid you not, man," said Feeley. "And that's one of the things that contributed to my — I mean, all joking aside, that contributed to my unease about continuing to be his personal representative. This is a man who is so fundamentally ignorant, who is surrounded by people who are not ignorant, who in their presentation toward a region that I dedicated about 30 years of my life to have such a fundamentally superficial view."

The report mentioned Steven Cash, who abandoned government employment after he said Trump turned work of career officials against Americans.

One issue is that Trump has essentially eliminated the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. While someone is there, the one who briefs Trump is the CIA director. So, instead of using the person who coordinates 18 separate intelligence agencies, Trump wants his CIA guy.

"Counterterrorism is getting second fiddle to the threats from China and Russia, and the current administration's focus on the border and narco-trafficking means a shift of resources to the Americas," said former CIA officer Marc Polymeropoulos. "I am afraid that counter-terrorism will not be a priority until a mass casualty event, and then it very much will be once again," Sipher says one of the most damaging ideas that's taken root is that career intelligence officials actively take sides in partisan politics.

"We have allowed our partisan anger, and specifically the Trump administration, to create this narrative that there's a deep state and that the intelligence services work for one party or another. I think it's a real danger," he said.

But the damage has already been inflicted after Trump alienated the world with his trade war, tough talk and bombastic rants online.

"The CIA in particular relies or depends on intelligence sharing with friendly and not so friendly foreign intelligence services," Weiner said. "It it is still only 20,000 people, and they cannot cover the entire world. They need the British. They need the Dutch. They need the Saudis. They need help."

After Sept. 11, help was easy to come by, he said. That has changed, however.

After 9/11, the ‘War on Terror’ Was a War of Terror

The crusade that George W. Bush launched 25 years ago to “rid the world of evil” only compounded it.

A fiery blasts rocks the World Trade Center after being hit by two planes September 11, 2001 in New York City.
(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

LONG READ

Norman Solomon
Sep 09, 2026

Common Dreams

Three days after terrorists killed almost 3,000 people in the United States on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush stood behind a pulpit at the Washington National Cathedral and spoke to a nation in shock. “Our responsibility to history is already clear,” he proclaimed, “to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil.” The vow was, of course, preposterous. Yet the “war on terror” that followed was scarcely more realistic.

“Terrorism is not an enemy. It cannot be defeated. It’s a tactic,” retired US Army General William Odom told C-SPAN viewers in 2002. “It’s about as sensible to say we declare war on night attacks and expect we’re going to win that war. We’re not going to win the war on terrorism.” But the American military crusade became more about persisting than winning. The ultraviolent momentum became its own reason. The destructive search for enemies created more. As years went by and the “war on terror” label faded, US warfare was so normal in so many places that it no longer needed a name or much of a rationale.

But 25 years ago, the impulse to avenge the horrors of 9/11 was instant. Fear and rage blended into high octane for war machinery. Suddenly, overwhelming public emotions were fully in sync with the psychology of a military-industrial complex set for large-scale killing.

Even as the trauma of the terrible day eased for the general public, 9/11 continued to serve as a political license to kill without an expiration date.

None of the 19 hijackers were Afghan, and Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s ties were much tighter with Saudi Arabia, but his presence in Afghanistan put that country in the Pentagon’s gunsights. The question in US media was not about whether, but when, to attack. The answer came on October 7 when American missiles began to explode in Afghanistan. Hours later, a Gallup poll found that “90 percent of Americans approve of the United States taking such military action, while just 5 percent are opposed, and another 5 percent are unsure.”

The air war remained quite popular in the United States. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld held daily live televised briefings that catapulted him to national adulation. A pattern set in, taking for granted that American warfare was beneficent in intent and benign in meaningful impact. People dying under American bombs and less directly didn’t count for much. “The targeting capabilities, and the care that goes into targeting, to see that the precise targets are struck, and that other targets are not struck, is as impressive as anything anyone could see,” Rumsfeld asserted. And he added, “The weapons that are being used today have a degree of precision that no one ever dreamt of.”

Rumsfeld’s style went over big. “Everyone is genuflecting before the Pentagon powerhouse,” exclaimed the Washington Post’s media reporter, Howard Kurtz, who called Rumsfeld “America’s new rock star.” That winter, after the Taliban government fell, the host of NBC’s Meet the Press program congratulated Rumsfeld on the air: “Sixty-nine years old and you’re America’s stud.”

The war in Iraq, launched with a March 2003 invasion, relied on massive air power and more than 150,000 US ground troops. The Saddam Hussein dictatorship fell quickly, but the promised “cakewalk” turned into year after year of combat and slaughter. Mainstream US media outlets were more than comfortable with above-it-all bombing that signified American air prowess. But the toll of American deaths and severe injuries gradually depleted enthusiasm as soldiers were called back for two, three or even more tours of duty. For many, the images of glory days turned into real-life nightmares.

The ongoing war effort that began in autumn 2001 had an implicit throughline in dominant media and politics: while American lives really matter, the victims of American firepower really don’t.

President Bush could not accept defeat in Iraq, and later Barack Obama could not countenance defeat in Afghanistan. Early in his presidency, Obama—in deed and word—made the “war on terror” expressly bipartisan. Less than a year after he received the Nobel Peace Prize in late 2009, the American troop level in Afghanistan reached 100,000, triple the number when he had entered the White House. During a visit to Bagram Air Base near Kabul, Obama provided the service members with star-spangled oratory that could be heard as uplifting or perhaps macabre: “I’ve been humbled by your sacrifice in the solemn homecoming of flag-draped coffins at Dover, to the headstones in section 60 at Arlington, where the fallen from this war rest in peace alongside the fellow heroes of America’s story.”

In effect, even as the trauma of the terrible day eased for the general public, 9/11 continued to serve as a political license to kill without an expiration date. Through it all, the ongoing war effort that began in autumn 2001 had an implicit throughline in dominant media and politics: while American lives really matter, the victims of American firepower really don’t.

* * *

Faraway uses of Pentagon air power had human consequences that hardly registered on political scales back home. For officialdom, tech innovations like drones were unalloyed marvels. The people who experienced terror had no voices, no faces, no names. On the rare occasions when that wasn’t the case, general interest was scant. After seven months in Taliban captivity, New York Times reporter David Rohde escaped from rugged terrain in Pakistan and later recounted what it was like to have US drones constantly hovering overhead: “The drones were terrifying. From the ground, it is impossible to determine who or what they are tracking as they circle overhead. The buzz of a distant propeller is a constant reminder of imminent death.”

The proclaimed war on terror had also become a war of terror.

A few days into his presidency, Obama sent Predator drones into Pakistan, killing three children and a dozen adults. A week later, a former “whiz kid” at the Pentagon during escalation of the Vietnam War in the 1960s, Pierre Sprey, appeared on the PBS program hosted by Bill Moyers. Sprey saw where US officials were headed with their air war. “I’d be astonished if one in five people they kill or wound is in fact a militant,” he said. “You can’t tell with a camera or an infrared sensor or something whether somebody’s a Taliban…. Most likely, you’re relying on some Afghani of unknown veracity and unknown motivation and who may, may very well be trying to settle a blood feud rather than give you good information.” But, Sprey added, “bombing is always politically popular, relative to sending infantry and killing our boys.”

Obama officials were enamored with the American air war, in spite of evidence that it was routinely killing many bystanders. In 2022, Phyllis Bennis at the Institute for Policy Studies offered this assessment: “The so-called ‘global war on terror’ has, from its origins, been characterized by attacks by US Special Forces, by airstrikes, by armed drones, and more, that routinely kill far more civilians than the targets identified on the ‘kill lists’ prepared by presidents and top White House officials. The routine recitation of ‘there is no military solution to terrorism’ has always been an anodyne rhetorical ploy, never an actual guide to what actions might actually work to change the conditions that give rise to terrorism.”

Ironically and tragically, the conditions giving rise to terrorism included the US war waged in the name of ending it. The process was foreseeable. In 1998, the Pakistani-American political scientist Eqbal Ahmad wrote: “A superpower cannot promote terror in one place and reasonably expect to discourage terrorism in another place. It won’t work in this shrunken world.”

Killing from the skies fueled desires for retribution. “For every 10 to 15 people killed, maybe they get one militant,” Pakistani photographer Noor Behram said in 2011. For three years, he had been documenting the immediate aftermath of drone attacks in the mountainous Waziristan region near the Afghan border. “There are just pieces of flesh lying around after a strike. You can’t find bodies. So the locals pick up the flesh and curse America. They say that America is killing us inside our own country, inside our own homes, and only because we are Muslims.” As a result, Behram said, “The youth in the area surrounding a strike gets crazed. Hatred builds up inside those who have seen a drone attack.”

Many thousands of miles away, military personnel in the US were peering at blurry images on computer screens and firing the drone missiles. “The truth is that we could not differentiate between armed fighters and farmers, women or children,” former tech sergeant Lisa Ling recalled. For several years, she had trained Air National Guard members on how to operate Air Force drones. Ling was among the drone whistleblowers who went public during the terror war’s second decade. One of them, the young intelligence analyst Daniel Hale, spent nearly three years in prison because he disclosed facts about the drone program’s human toll. “With drone warfare, sometimes nine out of ten people killed are innocent,” he said. “You have to kill part of your conscience to do your job. But what possibly could I have done to cope with the undeniable cruelties that I perpetuated? The thing I feared most was the temptation not to question it. So I contacted an investigative reporter… and told him I had something the American people needed to know.”

Hale provided The Intercept with classified documents that led to a landmark expose in October 2015. It reported, “Documents detailing a special operations campaign in northeastern Afghanistan, Operation Haymaker, show that between January 2012 and February 2013, US special operations airstrikes killed more than 200 people. Of those, only 35 were the intended targets. During one five-month period of the operation, according to the documents, nearly 90 percent of the people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets. In Yemen and Somalia, where the US has far more limited intelligence capabilities to confirm the people killed are the intended targets, the equivalent ratios may well be much worse.”

Early in his second term, at the National Defense University, Obama gave a much-ballyhooed speech that addressed downsides of the terror war, then in its twelfth year. “Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue,” he said. “But this war, like all wars, must end. That’s what history advises. That’s what our democracy demands.” Unlike the men who immediately preceded and followed him in the Oval Office, Obama seemed aware that perpetual war had negative effects on US society. Yet he didn’t proceed to do much about it. During the 44 months that followed his speech, through his last year in office, Obama maintained bombing of Afghanistan at about half the rate of his first term while drastically escalating the attacks in Iraq and Syria, with 30,743 bombs and missiles dropped on those two countries in 2016 alone.

* * *

Like Obama, both Donald Trump and Joe Biden ordered air strikes on Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. In his second term, Trump has widened US bombing missions to also include Iran, Nigeria and Venezuela along with targeting nonmilitary boats and killing more than 225 civilians during the last year in international waters.

The withdrawal of all US troops from Afghanistan in the late summer of 2021 seemed to mark a turn away from nonstop warfare. “I stand here today, for the first time in 20 years, with the United States not at war,” President Biden declared weeks later at the United Nations. He added, “We’ve turned the page.” But actually, America was bound into a high volume of war. The “war on terror” was morphing and continuing on several continents. In fact, during the same month as Biden’s UN speech, the Costs of War Project at Brown University released a new report documenting that “counterterrorism operations have become more widespread in recent years.” The project’s co-director, Catherine Lutz, said: “The war has been long and complex and horrific and unsuccessful… and the war continues in over 80 countries.”

Throughout the last 25 years, since the first missiles struck Afghanistan, a racial aspect of the terror war has been hidden in plain sight.

The day after the Hamas-led attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations stood outside the Security Council chambers and said, “This is Israel’s 9/11. This is Israel’s 9/11.” During the next six weeks, the New York Times later revealed, Israel “routinely” used 2,000-pound bombs in Gaza “in areas it designated safe for civilians.” Within nine months, Reuters reported, the large quantities of munitions supplied to Israel by the Biden administration included “more than 10,000 highly destructive 2,000-pound bombs.” Speaking to the UN General Assembly as the war in Gaza neared the end of its second year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “We’re wiping out the terror regime of Hamas and ensuring that its savagery will never threaten Israel again.” By then, the US government had provided more than $21 billion in military aid to Israel since October 7. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Israeli organizations Physicians for Human Rights—Israel and B’Tselem unequivocally concluded that what has happened in Gaza is genocide. It was enabled by the United States.

Throughout the last 25 years, since the first missiles struck Afghanistan, a racial aspect of the terror war has been hidden in plain sight. While institutional racism is widely understood to exist inside the United States, an unexamined assumption is that its pernicious aspects stop at the water’s edge. But public discourse about the “war on terror” has eluded a fact well worth pondering: virtually every man, woman and child killed by Pentagon firepower in this century has been a person of color. This is not to say that they were attacked because of their racial identity. But racial biases in the US, unconscious and otherwise, have made it politically easier to launch and sustain wars bringing horrors to their lives.

Current findings from the Costs of War Project include: “An estimated over 940,000 people were killed by direct post-9/11 war violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan between 2001-2023. Of these, more than 432,000 were civilians. The number of people wounded or ill as a result of the conflicts is far higher, as is the number of civilians who died ‘indirectly,’ as a result of wars’ destruction of economies, healthcare systems, infrastructure and the environment. An estimated 3.6-3.8 million people died indirectly in post-9/11 war zones, bringing the total death toll to at least 4.5-4.7 million and counting.”

In foreign countries, the overall “reverberating effects” have crushed countless lives. However, the only casualties of the “war on terror” that have really resonated in US politics are American losses. Yet many of the casualties are far from obvious. While “over 7,053 US service members died in the post-9/11 wars,” the Costs of War Project notes, “at least four times as many US service members and veterans of the post-9/11 wars died by suicide than in combat.” In addition, “An estimated 8,189 contractors for the US military died during the post-9/11 wars. Foreign workers for US contracting firms often do not have their deaths recorded or compensated.”

Such figures don’t include the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. The Veterans Administration now says that 15 percent of those wars’ veterans were suffering from PTSD “in the last year” and 29 percent “at some point in life.” Meanwhile, traumatic brain injury (TBI) from the two wars often afflicts veterans who were violently jolted by explosions and other wartime events. Analyzing Pentagon data, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that “more than 450,000 US service members were diagnosed with a TBI from 2000 to 2021.” Four years ago, the American Medical Association’s journal JAMA published an in-depth study of TBI among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. “Our study suggests that post-9/11 military veterans face a higher mortality burden across multiple causes of death than the total US population,” the study said. “We also found that exposure to moderate to severe TBI was associated with even higher mortality rates and excess mortality from accident, suicide, cancer, CVD [cardiovascular disease], homicide, and other causes.”

* * *

One day in mid-December 2002, three months before the “shock and awe” bombardment of the city began, I sat at a picnic table in a Baghdad park with the middle-aged Iraqi man who was my driver. There was no one around, no walls or fixtures that might conceal listening devices. He said that he wished Iraq had no oil, because then there would be no reason to fear an invasion.

Whatever people’s beliefs about the goals behind US warfare during the last quarter-century, there can be no doubt of its immense profitability.

During the last 25 years, while plenty of public discourse has faulted policymakers for tactical mistakes and dubious judgment in war policies, more nefarious motives have received little attention. The rallying cry “No blood for oil” was common among those actively opposing war in Iraq but a nonstarter in mainstream media and politics. “The slogan is neither intelligent nor honorable,” Washington Post columnist George Will said in a commentary for ABC News shortly before the Iraq invasion began. “Intelligent people can honorably differ about the wisdom and morality of war against Iraq. But we should be able to agree that oil, an economic motive, is not driving US policy.”

Four years later, General John Abizaid, former head of US Central Command and military operations in Iraq, said: “Of course it’s about oil, we can’t really deny that.”

In his memoir, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan wrote: “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.”

Before becoming Defense secretary, Senator Chuck Hagel said in 2007: “People say we’re not fighting for oil. Of course we are.”

Whatever people’s beliefs about the goals behind US warfare during the last quarter-century, there can be no doubt of its immense profitability. The start of the Afghanistan War in October 2001 began supercharged bonanzas for Pentagon contractors. The 20 years of that war overlapped with upward of $2 trillion in government funds going to the biggest contractors—Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Boeing and Northrop Grumman—an increase of 188 percent. “Those five firms spent over $1.1 billion on lobbying between 2001 and 2021,” Quincy Institute senior advisor Eli Clifton wrote. “That number seems like a staggering sum to spend on influencing policymakers but it may have been the most financially prudent decision these companies have made in the past 20 years.”

Investing in war stocks was likewise prudent for stock-market players. As the war in Afghanistan came to a close, journalist Jon Schwarz did the math: “If you purchased $10,000 of stock evenly divided among America’s top five defense contractors on September 18, 2001—the day President George W. Bush signed the Authorization for Use of Military Force in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks—and faithfully reinvested all dividends, it would now be worth $97,295. This is a far greater return than was available in the overall stock market over the same period. $10,000 invested in an S&P 500 index fund on September 18, 2001, would now be worth $61,613. That is, defense stocks outperformed the stock market overall by 58 percent during the Afghanistan War.”

* * *

The “war on terror” brand has gone out of fashion, but underlying military boosterism remains intact. Midway through Trump’s first term, the Democratic Party’s leaders in the House and Senate saluted when the commander in chief proposed an 11 percent Pentagon budget increase over two years. “In our negotiations, Congressional Democrats have been fighting for increases in funding for defense,” Representative Nancy Pelosi boasted. “We fully support President Trump’s Defense Department’s request,” Senator Chuck Schumer proclaimed. “US taxpayers spend far more on the military and war than most people realize,” says a recent report from the Project on Government Oversight, which documents that “there are several ways to calculate the true cost of our military” and “all add up to at least $1.5 trillion.” A two-year 11 percent military spending increase now looks almost dovish in comparison to the outlays on the near horizon. Even without enactment of Trump’s proposed half-a-trillion-dollar increase for the 2027 fiscal year military budget, the status quo is deeply mired in what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the madness of militarism.” If budgets are moral documents, America has been plunging into one moral abyss after another.

The “war on terror” brand has gone out of fashion, but underlying military boosterism remains intact.

With a very different style, Donald Trump’s basic lawless approach to international conflict is akin to Bush’s “war on terror” approach. Rhetoric aside, the actions have been clear: if the USA wants to attack another country, it will. This year’s unprovoked bombings of Iran signify how America’s foreign policy comes full spiral.

The crusade that George W. Bush launched to “rid the world of evil” only compounded it. Now, as the nation’s military juggernaut advances, the mindsets that propel it are in dire need of direct challenge.


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Norman Solomon
Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. The paperback edition of his latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, includes an afterword about the Gaza war.
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