ABSTRACT
The Taliban financed its activities by smuggling electronics into Central Asia and encouraging the cultivation of opium for export. Under international pressure, the Taliban cut production of opium by twothirds in 2000, depriving many Afghans of their main source of income. With no secure source of revenue and facing ongoing military resistance by a coalition of warlords called the Northern Alliance, Taliban rule degenerated into chaos. Cities destroyed during the Soviet occupation and the civil war remained in ruins, and failed policies combined with bad weather to produce widespread famine.
