'70 percent Taliban's funding comes from opium trade'

Lahore, May 31 (ANI): The Taliban is utilizing the funds generated from the opium trade to carry out its nefarious activities in Pakistan and other region of the world, American author Gretchen Peters has said.

In an interview to the Voice of America, Peters said the Taliban gets more than 70 percent of their funds from opium.

She also claimed that there are evidences which prove that Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden is also directly involved in the drug trade.

"While the insurgents earn some money from collecting taxes from the farmers, the bulk of the earnings come from protecting the trade, protecting the convoys and protecting the refineries and taxing the refineries and yet we are not going after that element of it," The Daily Times quoted Peters, as saying.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has said that the Taliban were being funded from abroad.

Gilani also said the drug mafia was also involved in the funding of the extremists.

He expressed fears that a surge in the presence of US troops in Afghanistan may have a detrimental effect on Pakistan's security, as the Taliban could once sneak into the country. (ANI)