RASC News Agency: In the shadow of lawlessness and under the cloak of religious absolutism, the Taliban regime continues to plunder Afghanistan’s natural wealth with impunity. The group’s self-styled Directorate of Mines and Petroleum in Kunar province has announced the sale of 687.18 kilograms of the semi-precious gemstone beruj for 54.5 million Kabuli rupees, in a so-called “public tender” process that raises serious questions about transparency, legality, and fairness.
Citing unnamed officials, the Taliban’s propaganda outlet Bakhtar News Agency reported on Thursday, July 11, that the sale was conducted in the presence of select domestic companies many of which, according to experts, are either affiliated with or beholden to local Taliban commanders. Mohammad Shireen Haqqani, the Taliban-appointed director of mines in Kunar, openly admitted that only 10% of the total sale amount was allocated as “government revenue”, while the remaining 90% was handed over to private entities. In the absence of a legitimate legal or regulatory framework, such transactions effectively function as a licence for looting, enriching Taliban elites while depriving the Afghanistani people of their rightful share in the nation’s natural wealth.
This marks the second major gemstone sale by the Taliban in just over a week. Earlier this month, the group claimed to have sold more than 56,000 kilograms of beruj also extracted from Kunar for approximately 65 million Kabuli rupees. Both transactions have sparked outrage among Afghanistan’s economists and civil society observers, who warn that the Taliban’s extractive policies mirror the very warlordism and crony capitalism the group once vowed to eliminate. Beruj, abundantly found in the mountainous provinces of Kunar and Nuristan, is a highly valued semi-precious stone used in global jewelry and decorative markets. Yet, under Taliban rule, this lucrative resource has become a source of informal revenue, elite capture, and systemic corruption, rather than an engine for sustainable development or local economic empowerment.
“The Taliban are not governing a state they are running a racket,” said a former Afghanistan’s mining official who fled the country after the fall of Kabul. “What is happening now is nothing short of the industrial-scale theft of Afghanistan’s underground wealth.” Economic analysts emphasize that any exploitation of natural resources by the Taliban is, under international law, illegitimate. The group lacks both domestic constitutional authority and international recognition, and therefore cannot legally engage in contracts involving state assets. The extraction and sale of minerals under Taliban authority are increasingly being described by experts as pillaging a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Over the past four years, the Taliban have built a shadow economy on the back of Afghanistan’s natural resources from Panjshir emeralds and Badakhshan gold, to Bamiyan’s lead and tin, and the rich veins of lapis lazuli in the northeast. These resources, once seen as the key to national reconstruction, are now being siphoned off to fund the Taliban’s repressive machinery, including its vast surveillance network, religious police, and madrasa-based indoctrination infrastructure. Unofficial estimates suggest that millions of U.S. dollars have been pocketed by Taliban leaders through these activities. While rural communities remain without electricity, clean water, or access to schools and hospitals, Taliban commanders grow rich off mineral exploitation, narcotics trafficking, and cross-border smuggling.
Locals in Kunar and neighboring provinces confirm widespread looting of mines by Taliban-affiliated strongmen. These commanders run their territories as feudal estates, answerable only to their patrons in Kandahar or Doha. Without any system of public accountability, environmental safeguards, or equitable distribution mechanisms, mining operations under the Taliban are conducted with utter disregard for both human rights and ecological sustainability. “Afghanistan’s mineral wealth is no longer a national asset it is Taliban war bounty,” said a civil society leader in Jalalabad, speaking on condition of anonymity. “The people of this country will remain impoverished as long as these men with guns control the gold, the gems, and the state.”
With the international community narrowly focused on humanitarian aid and frozen reserves, the Taliban are exploiting this blind spot to entrench their economic grip on the country transforming Afghanistan into a kleptocratic theocracy fueled by natural resource looting and gender apartheid. Until the Taliban’s economic exploitation is directly sanctioned, and mechanisms for resource accountability and transparency are restored through legitimate governance, Afghanistan’s wealth will continue to serve a regime that criminalizes dissent, excludes women, and erases the very idea of citizenship.
