Taliban fighters. © Reuters
New York Times: Saudis Bankroll Taliban, Even as King Officially Supports Afghan Government
KABUL, Afghanistan — Fifteen years, half a trillion dollars and 150,000 lives since going to war, the United States is trying to extricate itself from Afghanistan. Afghans are being left to fight their own fight. A surging Taliban insurgency, meanwhile, is flush with a new inflow of money.
With their nation’s future at stake, Afghan leaders have renewed a plea to one power that may hold the key to whether their country can cling to democracy or succumbs to the Taliban. But that power is not the United States.
It is Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia is critical because of its unique position in the Afghan conflict: It is on both sides.
A longtime ally of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia has backed Islamabad’s promotion of the Taliban. Over the years, wealthy Saudi sheikhs and rich philanthropists have also stoked the war by privately financing the insurgents.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: Both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have the power to cut-off much of the money that fuels the Taliban insurgency. But it is not going to happen .... they have their own agendas .... and having an independent Afghanistan not one of them.
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