Description

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Most Americans think of the Taliban and al Qaeda as a bunch of bearded fanatics fighting an Islamic crusade from caves in Afghanistan. But that doesn't explain their astonishing comeback along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Why is it eight years after we invaded Afghanistan, the CIA says that these groups are better armed and better funded than ever?

Seeds of Terror will reshape the way you think about America's enemies, revealing them less as ideologues and more as criminals who earn half a billion dollars every year off the opium trade. With the breakneck pace of a thriller, author Gretchen Peters traces their illicit activities from vast poppy fields in southern Afghanistan to heroin labs run by Taliban commanders, from drug convoys armed with Stinger missiles to the money launderers of Karachi and Dubai.

This isn't a fanciful conspiracy theory. Seeds of Terror is based on hundreds of interviews with Taliban fighters, smugglers, and law enforcement and intelligence agents. Their information is matched by intelligence reports shown to the author by frustrated U.S. officials who fear the next 9/11 will be far deadlier than the first--and paid for with drug profits.

Seeds of Terror makes the case that we must cut terrorists off from their drug earnings if we ever hope to beat them. This war isn't about ideology or religion. It's about creating a new economy for Afghanistan--and breaking the cycle of violence and extremism that has gripped the region for decades.

Gretchen Peters has covered Pakistan and Afghanistan for more than a decade, first for the Associated Press and later for ABC News. A Harvard graduate, Peters was nominated for an Emmy for her coverage of the 2007 assassination of Benazir Bhutto and won the SAJA Journalism Award for a Nightline segment on Pervez Musharraf. She lives in the United States with her husband, the Robert Capa Gold Medal-winning photojournalist John Moore, and their two daughters.

Eight years after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, the CIA says that the Taliban and al Qaeda are better armed and better funded than ever. How have they made such an astonishing comeback along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border?

Seeds of Terror gives readers a new perspective on these two groups, revealing their members less as ideologues and more as criminals who earn half a billion dollars every year off the opium trade. With the breakneck pace of a thriller, Gretchen Peters traces their illicit activities from vast poppy fields in southern Afghanistan to heroin labs run by Taliban commanders, from drug convoys armed with Stinger missiles to the money launderers of Karachi and Dubai.

Peters' thoroughly researched book is based on hundreds of interviews with Taliban fighters, smugglers, and law enforcement and intelligence agents. Their information is matched by intelligence reports shown to the author by frustrated U.S. officials who fear the next 9/11 will be far deadlier than the first—and paid for with drug profits.

Seeds of Terror makes the case that we must cut terrorists off from their drug earnings if we ever hope to beat them. This war isn't about ideology or religion, Peters asserts; it's about creating a new economy for Afghanistan, and breaking the cycle of violence and extremism that has gripped the region for decades.

"A stunning, deeply disturbing book . . . A must-read for all Western policymakers and President Obama before they implement any new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan."—Ahmed Rashid, New York Times bestselling author of Taliban and Descent into Chaos

"A vitally important book. Until the United States admits what Peters knows, and changes course, the virulent narco-terrorism spreading across South Asia will cause us to lose not only Afghanistan but Pakistan as well."—Robert Baer, New York Times bestselling author of Sleeping with the Devil and The Devil We Know

"Peters has done a superlative job with Seeds of Terror. It is a primer for the new administration—a blueprint for what must be done in Afghanistan to rescue victory from the jaws of defeat."—Jack Lawn, DEA chief under Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush

"The linkage between fighting drugs and fighting terrorism is, with Seeds of Terror, now firmly established. Gretchen Peters, combining personal experience and in-depth research, paints a frightening picture and tells us how to surmount the problem. A critically important book."—Raymond W. Baker, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and author of Capitalism's Achilles Heel

"Detailed and highly readable . . . masterfully traces the enormous success of the illegal heroin trade in Afghanistan."—Frederick P. Hitz, former inspector general of the CIA and author of Why Spy?

"One of the most incisive lines in Gretchen Peters’ new book about the Afghan opium trade is buried on page 134: 'The Taliban and their allies may be earning hundreds of millions from the drug trade, but one thing almost everyone interviewed for this project agreed on was that crooked members of Hamid Karzai’s administration are earning even more.' Opium may be bankrolling the Taliban and al Qaeda, as the book’s subtitle announces, but the huge participation of Afghan government officials in the production and trafficking of opium is a profoundly inconvenient fact for the United States/NATO mission in the country . . . The most damning parts of the book are Ms. Peters’ analysis of the U.S.’s counternarcotics policy itself, which hardly even existed in the first years after the fall of the Taliban regime. Bush’s first secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, famously declared that the U.S. military would have no part in fighting the drug trade. That task was handed off to the British. Later, when the U.S. undertook a limited effort at counternarcotics, the teams sent out to confront farmers were not given helicopter rides or military protection; they naturally cancelled the missions, since they involved traveling to some of the most dangerous areas in Afghanistan. Ms. Peters describes the perception among many Afghans, and even Western officials, that the U.S. policy was to condone the drug trade . . . What is clear from Ms. Peters’ account is that there are people on both sides who have a large stake in making sure the Afghanistan conflict continues. Drug traffickers, be they official or criminal, profit from the instability. One case study in the book clearly points to this conclusion. Arguably the most important drug kingpin of the last two decades, Haji Bashir Noorzai, had been an original founder of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in 1994. At that time, the trafficking routes were littered with roadblocks set up by local warlords who collected 'taxes' on the goods passing through. Mr. Noorzai was growing tired of paying the tax, and according to Ms. Peters, invited the Taliban to eliminate his obstacle. After 2001, Mr. Noorzai played both sides of the conflict by courting American agents with useful intelligence on his former Taliban partners, all the while developing his opium empire. He was recently lured to New York by the promise of more cooperation with Americans, but was arrested by Drug Enforcement Administration agents upon arrival. Ms. Peters makes some excellent policy suggestions at the end of her book. She is sensitive to the situation of small Afghan farmers, who would be crushed by debt to traffickers if their crops were eradicate

About the Author

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Gretchen Peters has covered Pakistan and Afghanistan for more than a decade, first for the Associated Press and later for ABC News. A Harvard graduate, Peters was nominated for an Emmy for her coverage of the 2007 assassination of Benazir Bhutto and won the SAJA Journalism Award for a Nightline segment on Pervez Musharraf. She lives in the United States with her husband, the Robert Capa Gold Medal-winning photojournalist John Moore, and their two daughters.

Praise for Seeds of Terror: How Heroin Is Bankrolling the Taliban and al Qaeda…

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"A stunning, deeply disturbing book . . . A must-read for all Western policymakers and President Obama before they implement any new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan."
- Ahmed Rashid, New York Times bestselling author of Taliban and Descent into Chaos

"A vitally important book. Until the United States admits what Peters knows, and changes course, the virulent narco-terrorism spreading across South Asia will cause us to lose not only Afghanistan but Pakistan as well."
- Robert Baer, New York Times bestselling author of Sleeping with the Devil and The Devil We Know

"Peters has done a superlative job with Seeds of Terror. It is a primer for the new administration--a blueprint for what must be done in Afghanistan to rescue victory from the jaws of defeat."
- Jack Lawn, DEA chief under Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush

"The linkage between fighting drugs and fighting terrorism is, with Seeds of Terror, now firmly established. Gretchen Peters, combining personal experience and in-depth research, paints a frightening picture and tells us how to surmont the problem. A critically important book."
- Raymond W. Baker, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and author of Capitalism's Achilles Heel

"Detailed and highly readable . . . masterfully traces the enormous success of the illegal heroin trade in Afghanistan."
- Frederick P. Hitz, former inspector general of the CIA and author of Why Spy?

“An important examination of ‘the nexus of [drug] smugglers and extremists’ in the global war against terrorists. Peters builds a solid case [and] has exhaustively framed one of the thorniest problems facing policy makers in this long war.”
- Publishers Weekly

“Sure to be hotly discussed, this new book explores the often labyrinthine connections between terrorism, the American government, and the heroin trade. Clear and persuasive...Peters shows how events that are happening today were set in motion by what took place in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s.”
- Booklist