The Kabul Tribune (KT) — The Taliban administration has rejected a U.S. Embassy statement that 463 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine seized in Pakistan was of Afghan origin, saying the drugs did not originate in Afghanistan.
The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad said earlier that the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration and Pakistan’s Anti-Narcotics Force had seized
463 kilograms of Afghan-origin crystal methamphetamine worth about $21 million
that was bound for Sri Lanka. The embassy said the joint operation led to
multiple arrests and highlighted ongoing U.S. training for Pakistani
authorities to disrupt international drug-trafficking networks.
Taliban Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi,
writing on X, said the Taliban administration had imposed what he described as
an absolute ban on the production, trafficking and use of narcotics in
Afghanistan.
He argued that Afghanistan did not have the capacity to
produce synthetic drugs and said crossings along the Durand Line had been
closed to all movement for nearly a year. He called on the U.S. Embassy to
investigate the origin of the seized drugs in Pakistan rather than, as he put
it, becoming “a propaganda tool of others.”
Background: United Nations drug-monitoring data shows that
synthetic drugs, including methamphetamine, have been present in Afghanistan
and the wider region. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has documented
methamphetamine production and trafficking linked to Afghanistan, including
evidence of manufacturing facilities and methamphetamine seizures in the
country.
More recent UNODC analysis, however, presents a mixed
picture. Its 2025 Afghanistan Opium Survey said methamphetamine seizure trends
in the region appeared largely uninterrupted by Afghanistan’s drug ban, with
methamphetamine seizures within 3,000 kilometers of Afghanistan continuing to
increase in frequency through 2023 and remaining about 50% above the third
quarter of 2021 level by the end of 2024. The report also said those trends
raise questions about the sources and means of methamphetamine manufacture.
