US EditionReport: CIA Dropped Modified Poppy Seeds to Sabotage Afghan Opium Trade
- Recently, The Washington Post revealed the Central Intelligence Agency ran a highly classified program that blanketed Afghan opium poppy fields with specially modified seeds, confirmed by 14 sources.
- The CIA sought to degrade opium potency by targeting heroin funding for corruption and the Taliban, obtaining a classified presidential `finding` from President George W. Bush to legalize the covert action.
- In the autumn of 2004, clandestine airdrops began using British C-130 aircraft on night flights, dispersing billions of specially developed seeds over Nangarhar province and Helmand province.
- The program was paused and then ended about 2015 because budget pressures strained the CIA Crime and Narcotics Centre, with mixed assessments as some officials said it worked for a time while SIGAR found no lasting reductions.
- The United States has spent about $US9 billion since 2001 on counternarcotics, and the Afghan crop rebounded last year by 19 percent, the United Nations said.
33 Articles
33 Articles
CIA Hatched a Unique Plot to Disrupt Afghan Opium
The US is deploying aggressive—and very public —methods these days in its war on international drugs. It's a sharp contrast to a secret tactic used years ago in Afghanistan that the Washington Post is revealing for the first time. It seems the CIA secretly dropped modified seeds on poppy...
The U.S. fight against drug trafficking comes from afar, and its war is not only spreading to Latin America, but also to Asia. The Washington Post has revealed this week exclusively that during the twenty years of the Afghanistan conflict (2001-2021) not only bombs were dropped against that country, but also "billions" of tiny poppy seeds, which were part of a secret plan to clandestinely manipulate Afghanistan's poppy harvest, from which opium …
Canary exclusive — RAF rejects claims of covert opium seed drops in Afghanistan
Speaking to the Canary, a spokesman from the British Royal Air Force (RAF) denied claims that its planes had engaged in covert airborne missions to drop opium poppy seeds into Afghanistan on behalf of the CIA — America’s principal intelligence service. No records of RAF C-130s supporting any programme or Foreign National Agency existed he told the Canary. The denial follows a Washington Post exposé. The report, citing 14 unnamed insiders, descri…
CIA launched operation to weaken Afghanistan opium production
A new report has revealed that America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was involved in a major decade-long operation that weakened Afghanistan’s opium production. The operation involved dispersing modified poppy seeds over the country’s vast fields, The Washington Post revealed this week. The plan, which aimed to degrade the potency of Afghanistan's billion-dollar opium crop, took place between 2004 and 2015. Opium is a key source of income …
Sydney Morning Herald
Inside the CIA’s secret mission to sabotage Afghanistan’s opium
Clandestine night flights dropped billions of genetically modified seeds over poppy fields in a classified mission to disrupt the country’s lucrative opium trade.
The CIA has been working for over a decade, an ultra-secret operation in Afghanistan, leaving modified mam seeds from the plane to reduce the opium power used for heroin production. Revealed now by Washington Post, the program saw the sabotaging...
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