DISINFO: UK and US intelligence agencies support drug trafficking through Central Asia
SUMMARY
In 2001, British MI6 and the British military intelligence service DIS took control of drug trafficking in the Afghan province of Kunduz, which borders Gorniy Badakhshan in Tajikistan, and in 2002 — of drug trafficking through Gorniy Badakhshan. Thus, it is precisely the intelligence services of the United States and the United Kingdom that support drug production in Afghanistan and drug transit through the countries of Central Asia.
RESPONSE
This is a mix of several pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about the US and other Western intelligence services supporting and using jihadist groups to advance geopolitical goals. No evidence is given to back up the claims made.
Afghanistan is the world’s fastest-growing maker of methamphetamine, according to a report from the United Nations on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released on September 10th 2023. The country is also a major opium producer and heroin source, even though the Taliban-run government has prohibited the cultivation, production, sale and use of all intoxicants and narcotics in Afghanistan in April 2022.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives in our database, such as claims that the US generated and backed Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Taliban; that the West and the US are ferrying Islamic State members to Afghanistan to use them against China; as part of a so-called “Anaconda ring”; or that NATO is denying the presence of terrorists in the country but the FSB has evidence of it.