Islam has always had a way of popping up self contradicting scenario. India saw Mughals, who did everything to further the cause of Islam in India. They indulged in massive massacres of human lives here just to convert Indians to Islam. Yet, it remains a fact that none of those cruel ones followed the tenets of Islam strictly. All the Mughal rulers of India had a deep fancy for alcohol - so much prohibited by Islam. Now, Taliban, the self proclaimed yet half-Muslims, are presenting the same contradicting scene.

Specially trained and equipped U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Agents assigned to Foreign-deployed Advisory and Support Teams (FAST), and specially trained officers assigned to the National Interdiction Unit (NIU) of the Counter-Narcotics Police of Afghanistan, successfully raided a number of remote heroin laboratories and hashish processing facilities in Afghanistan very recently.

These facilities were under the command and control of the Taliban. A traffickers compound that was successfully raided over a year ago by FAST/NIU operators resulted in the seizure of evidence that clearly showed about $170 million dollars flowing through the hands of the responsible, Taliban-affiliated drug baron in just a 10 month period. that goes to show that Taliban has turned this drugs trade into its mainstay. Indeed it is a huge source of income - it is widely believed in informed circles that Taliban is earning a revenue to the tune of some 500-600 dollars annually from drug peddling.

Thus maintaining their cash-flow at even, the Taliban are demonstrating a resilience and a ferocity that is raising alarm in Washington and in other NATO capitals, and engendering a fresh round of soul-searching over how a relatively ragtag insurgency has managed to keep the world’s most powerful armies at bay. The same is going to happen in Pakistan too because that country is neither too Islamic nor too humane.