Al-Qaeda's finances weak but Taliban's growing

The financial strength of Al-Qaeda is weakening in part due to global sanctions but the Taliban in Afghanistan is gaining from the heroin trade and other criminal activity, a US official said.

An Afghan soldier is pictured in a poppy field in Maiwand, west of Kandahar in 2005. A US official has said that the financial strength of Al-Qaeda is weakening in part due to global sanctions but the Taliban in Afghanistan is gaining from the heroin trade and other criminal activity.

David Cohen, assistant Treasury secretary for terrorist financing, said at a conference Monday that the Taliban "are in much stronger financial shape than Al-Qaeda."

Cohen, whose comments were released in a transcript of Tuesday, said US officials believe that Al-Qaeda "is in its weakest financial condition in several years, and that as a result, its influence is waning."

He said that Al-Qaeda's current financial state "represents one good measure of the success of these coordinated strategies" to cut off financial support for groups involved in terror attacks.

The situation is different for the Taliban, which is spreading its footprint across Afghanistan, according to the official.

"In Afghanistan today, the Taliban finances attacks against US and coalition forces through a wide range of criminal activity," he said.

"It extorts funds from those involved in the heroin trade by demanding protection payments from poppy farmers, drug-lab operators and the smugglers who transport the chemicals into and the heroin out of the country.

"It also demands protection payments from legitimate businesses seeking to operate in Afghanistan, especially in the southern and eastern regions of the country. You can be assured that some of the money it extorts moves out of the country and into the international financial system."

He said Washington "will continue to be aggressive and creative in our efforts to combat terrorist financing" against those who "continue to pose serious threats to US interests around the world."