As the Obama administration reviews its Afghanistan and Pakistan policy, looking for creative means to challenge extremist funding, the drug trade is increasingly coming into focus.

Afghanistan’s booming narcotics industry generates much of the money that flows into terrorists’ coffers, and increased production in recent years has overlapped with a sharp rise in Taliban attacks on coalition forces. Captured Taliban have confessed that most of their funding comes from the drug trade. And it is an open secret that much of Afghanistan’s illicit money is through commodities and trade.