In an analysis published in the Foreign Policy Magazine, columnist Lynne O’Donnell explains “How an Afghan Drug Kingpin Became Beijing’s Man in Kabul.” O’Donnell chronicles how an Afghan drug kingpin, who served a life sentence in the United States, has now become the “key conduit for growing ties between China and the Taliban.”
Bashir Noorzai was released in 2023 from a US prison in a trade for an American hostage, former US Navy diver Mark Frerichs, and has now gone into business with China, setting up “murky joint-venture deals with Chinese firms in Afghanistan.”
Prior to his arrest in 2005 on drug charges, Noorzai was the ultimate don of the heroin trade in Afghanistan and was referred to as the “Pablo Escobar of Afghanistan.”
Returning home a hero, O’Donnell writes that Bashir Noorzai is a confidant of the supreme leader of the Taliban, Hibatullah Akhundzada, and close to the Taliban’s acting foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi.
Such high level contacts have helped him snag contracts for his company, ‘Afg-Chin Oil’ and Gas Ltd. Equating him to “one of the warlords,” to researcher Javed Noorani, an expert on Afghanistan’s mining sector says people like Bashir Noorzai who have no experience in the mining industry are able to receive contracts was due to Afghanistan’s “nontransparent bidding process” and, most importantly, his friendship with the top man.
Seeped in conflict, Afghanistan’s fate has been shaped by the influence of powerful warlords, who often dictate the country’s politics. Their formidable support is crucial for any functional government in Kabul.
The US “war on terror” in Afghanistan incongruously renewed the influence of the warlords who were deeply involved with the drug trade. Considered the backbone of Afghanistan’s polity, Afghan warlords, the warlords with their alliances and territorial control, remain pivotal players in Afghanistan’s intricate political landscape.
And despite the change in government and the Taliban takeover of Kabul, their influence remains intact. Leader of the Noorzai tribe, Bashir has significant influence over the community, with a web of connections spun over years of shadowy dealings. Most of his “business activity is in the southern poppy belt centered on the province of Helmand.”