Sharp End of Terrorism and Narco-trafficking

Abstract

The relationship between narcotrafficking and terrorism remains a contentious issue. While some assert that narcotrafficking may be a strong predictor of terrorism, others contest this observation. In this essay the focus lies on the impact of the Afghan opioid trade on terrorist violence in Central Asia, an area of drug transit states. This essay and the findings lend support to the argument that narcotrafficking facilitates terrorism, although the substantive impact of the drug trade on terrorist activity is comparatively small.

KEY WORDS

Narcotics

Terrorism

Fragile States

Convergence theory

Appropriation of operations

Introduction

The relationship between narcotrafficking and terrorism remains a contentious issue. While some assert that narcotrafficking may be a strong predictor of terrorism, others contest this observation. In this essay the focus lies on the impact of the Afghan opioid trade on terrorist violence in Central Asia, an area of drug transit states. This essay and the findings lend support to the argument that narcotrafficking facilitates terrorism, although the substantive impact of the drug trade on terrorist activity is comparatively small. However, it suggests that the drug–terror relationship is multifaceted, complex, and in detail related to the state. We also find that the links between narcotrafficking and terrorist violence are quite varied, with some defined by direct intersections of violent and criminal non-state actors, while others shaped by deep involvement of the state in the drug trade. The old paradigm of fighting terrorism and transnational crime on its own, using a variety of tools and methods, may not be sufficient to meet the challenges posed by Convergence of these networks in an insurrection context of crime-terrorism. Violent non-state entities, including extremist organizations and resistance forces, try to collaborate with criminal networks in order to fund acts of aggression and procure materials for devastation and assassination. Such organizations are involved in the legal economy through real estate, corporations, and other institutions.

To empirically assess the link between narcotics and terrorism, this essay limits its scope to drug transit states those states that are critical narcotrafficking points but aren't where drug cultivation and consumption predominate. If there's a relationship between the drug trade and terrorism, the drug transit states should experience heightened levels of terrorism, thanks to the sheer quantity of the illicit narcotics passing through these countries. Narcotrafficking, as an example, has the potential to inject enormous wealth into insurgent and terrorist groups enabling them to endure and do more deadly attacks. Moreover, by focusing on drug transit states, it cuts out causal factors in economies of drug production and consumption due to the cost and access to crop inputs, rural labor mobilization, and transporting the product to market which will complicate any analysis of a drug trade–terrorism relationship. To examine the drug trade–terrorism relationship, the case of Central Asia Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan are chosen. Geographically positioned between Afghanistan and therefore the major markets of Afghan opioids in Russia and Europe, Central Asia is the epitome of a drug transit region, rendering it a “typical” case with which will assess the results of narco-trafficking on terrorist violence. (Gerring2017:47–49)

Afghanistan may be a leading exporter of heroin and opium: it's been the world’s top opium producer, cultivating over 90 per cent of the world’s supply, yet it consumes just one per cent While terrorist incidents in Central Asia are relatively few, compared to other parts of the globe, they're sufficient to assess the effect of narco-trafficking on terrorism. Terrorism is labelled as “a threat or actual use of illegal strain and violence by using the manner of a non- state actor to recognize a political, financial, spiritual, or social intention through fear, coercion or intimidation. (Global Terrorism Database)

While the links between narcotrafficking from Afghanistan and terrorism in Central Asian states are widely assumed, these connections haven't been empirically tested, and therefore the nature of the link is poorly understood. Drug trafficking in a source, transit, and consumer countries may lead to the problems of terror in at least two ways; creating corruption in law enforcement, military, and other policy and civil society organizations in ways that either generate popularly support for terrorist-related groups, and undermine the capacity of a community to counter terrorist groups and deeds, and generate instability in areas where narcotics are manufactured, through which they flow, and in which they are distributed and consumed. The drug-terror thesis points out to the ideological shift between the two organizations but establishes that they mutually benefit from the sheer profit. This essay supports the claim that drug trafficking induces terrorism, while the direct impact of drug trafficking on terrorist activity is comparatively limited and under-researched.

This essay provides two significant additions to contributions linking opioids and political activity. First, the essay presents a critical epistemological and methodological analysis of the themes of ‘'convergence theory'' and "appropriation of operations" that describes the relationship between narcotics and terrorism. The second contribution to knowledge this essay provides empirical evidence that confirms the connection between terrorism and drug trafficking. To determine empirically the association between drug trafficking and terrorism, this analysis restricts its focus on empirical evidence from the Central Asian republics enables the assessment of a wide range of perpetrators of violence against the state to maintain profit from the drug trade. Inspecting the effect of annual levels of the Afghan opioids trade (measured using the extent of opium and heroin seizures) on terrorist activity in thirty provinces across Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan from 2008–2016. Much of the scholarship on the linkages between drug trafficking and terrorism has focused on the relationship between the opium production and terrorism in Afghanistan, and the impact of drug prices on terrorist violence. (Meierrieks and Schneider 2016)

Drawing on these and other studies, the essay identifies two types of linkages direct and indirect between drug trafficking and terrorism. The essay proceeds as follows: the primary section examines indirect impact, cash and corruption. The secondary section takes stock of the knowledge of drug trafficking–terrorism connections and distils the core hypotheses from the literature on the direct impact and links between the drug trade and terrorism. Finally, the third sections details chaos and instability.

Indirect Impact; Cash and Corruption

The impacts of drug trafficking on patterns of terrorist activities can be indirect and diffuse, by shaping the broader social and economic surroundings through the state’s involvement in drug trafficking which frequently brings unintentional, conditional outcomes on the character of intrastate battle and terrorist violence. It has been asserted that a kind of an excessive strain associated with financial destitute and political marginalization of the government make it conducive to a greater terror. (Agnew,2010: 147–172) Nevertheless, the cocaine trade has generated insurgency financing and support for others who employ terrorist activity in numerous regions around the world, particularly transit areas. In certain instances, drugs have been financing the authorization of terrorist attacks as in the event of the Madrid bombings. According to the 2007 UNODC World Drug Survey, the gross benefit of the 2006 opium harvest with Afghanistan accruing to farmers, laboratory owners and Afghan traders contributed to around US$ 3.1 billion. Estimates are complex but only a small percentage will be more than enough for those groups or organizations to plot, fund, and carry out acts of terror.

Drug trafficking enhances the risk of terrorist activity by drawing in recruits and weakening State capability which enables the emergence of illicit financing and recruitment programs that are essential to the organizational partnership between terrorism and drug trafficking as state institutions offer support for terrorism and trafficking. Besides, by utilizing the regulation of the drug trafficking networks as instruments of co-optation and influence by local elites, state involvement in drug trafficking will give rise to resistance from the community and marginalized actors, thereby leading to the rise of disaffected elite leaders.

Simultaneously, states that focus on aggressive and authoritarian law enforcement and defense agencies that exacerbate resistance, strengthen the demand for radicalization and move certain societies into extremism. There are also major impacts of drug trafficking on State ability. Drug trafficking and violence overburdens the systems of defense and law enforcement. Opioid trafficking promotes many forms of crime and spirals federal budgets on law enforcement and security. It fuels secondary illicit arms trade, fraudulent records, money laundering, and human smuggling that militant organizations may exploit. (Cornell and Jonsson 2011:12)

The rising expenses of law enforcement weakens policy capacity to ensure domestic stability, including resources to "harden" future militant goals and diversify counter-terrorism strategies. Theoretically, weak State capability may provide terrorist organizations with a variety of resources, including links to sanctuary bases, arms, personnel, funding, transport networks, and theoretical support via local advertising and service provision. (Patrick 2011:12) Inside state structures, narcotics trafficking generates influential economic and political inter-establishments that aim to undermine state authorities; corrupted by the narcotics industry, elected leaders and influential corporate community members would pose an insurmountable barrier to programs and strategies that aim to reduce revenues associated with drug production.

The largest volumes of opioids (2,000–2,334 kg) were confiscated in Uzbekistan's Syrhandarya province which shares a 137-km border with northern Afghanistan's Balkh province. Balkh province has been noted for the presence of small labs processing morphine but also as a region for the transport and storing of opium and cocaine from other parts of Afghanistan. (UNODC 2012) However, Tajikistan has become the main transportation route for Afghan opioids. Tajikistan's two provinces Khatlon and Gorno-Badakhshan share a 1,300-kilometre frontier with northern Afghanistan provinces, including Badakhshan, a pioneer in heroin production. It's no wonder that the highest heroin seizures took place in Tajikistan. The suicide bombing attributed to the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) of the Chinese Embassy in Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) in August 2016 and two violent attacks perpetrated by the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) in the Andijon province of Uzbekistan in September 2009 may demonstrate this clear effect of the drug trade on terrorism. The ETIM, classified as a terrorist organization, has had an extensive financial partnership with Al Qaeda offered financial and other assistance to the organization. Organized crime, such as cocaine dealing, weapons procurement, abduction, extorting and robbery, was also the main source of finance for the ETIM. While the means of funding the Chinese embassy bombing in Bishkek remain unclear, the ETIM has used proceeds from illegal operations, including cocaine trafficking, to hire and train soldiers and terrorists who have fled China. (Security Council Committee 2015)

The literature examined in this essay discusses numerous and dynamic routes connecting terrorism with trafficking. Drug production will, therefore, threaten the credibility and power of the state, with major consequences for the operation of the state and its institutions. Public distrust, combined with inadequate public protection measures, will alienate the community from the governing institutions, and make individuals vulnerable to radical group appeals. Drug-trafficking postulates a clear substantial effect of drug trade on terrorism, that can arise by communication or perhaps through the formation of partnerships between terrorists and criminal organizations. The state’s role in the drug trade create a crucial connection between traffickers and terrorist groups by offering political security or active participation in drugs operations that unwittingly.

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