Blown Away
The destruction of illicit drug labs in Afghanistan
Author: Richard Brittan, Alcis
Until recently, knowledge of the location of illicit opium processing drug labs in Afghanistan has remained firmly within the domain of those in the illicit drugs industry, the local population, as well as the intelligence and law enforcement community. Occasional ground photos and videos taken inside these labs have circulated online, which have given a rare glimpse into the nature of this activity. To our knowledge, no locations of any opium processing labs, either current or historic have been made public. This is surprising given that there are reportedly hundreds of such labs across Afghanistan.
This changed on the 19th November 2017, when the United States Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A) commenced an operation to destroy these drug labs aimed at denying revenue to both the illicit drugs trade and the Taliban, who tax this activity. By August 2018, USFOR-A claimed to have destroyed as many as 200 drug labs, denying the drugs trade over US$200 million and the Taliban US$46 million, a loss that was argued contributed to the Taliban being driven to the negotiating table.
During this period, USFOR-A released 23 videos showing what they claimed were drugs labs being destroyed. These videos were recorded by drones that were observing targets at the time of strike and show a total of 43 compounds being blown up. Curiously, a large number of the compounds did not appear to be actively processing opium at the time of strike, contradicting the above claims of lost revenue.
Through careful analysis of each video, Alcis has now been able to locate 29 of the compounds attacked in these videos. Imagery analysts at Alcis have searched historic satellite imagery databases and explored the history of each of these compounds over time.
At the same time, interviews by field surveyors were conducted with the owners of compounds who have rented out their property for opium processing, lab owners and lab workers as well as others in the local population. When the imagery and geospatial analysis is combined with targeted field survey work, the findings are quite dramatic. A report covering this analysis and findings has been released by the London School of Economics (LSE) today and can be found here.
Some brief insights to emerge from the analysis are as follows:
A major indicator of opium processing activity is the presence of large 200 litre barrels, as seen in the ground photo above. In the only example of its type, still thermal images released by USFOR-A below, show the lines of heated barrels where processing was underway at the time of strike.
Although with fewer barrels visible, a similar processing activity can be observed in the left hand image below, taken a month before it was struck. However, at the time of strike, the accompanying video shows no sign of activity in this compound, as seen in the right hand below image.
In several cases, labs have been struck more than once. Whilst field interviews indicated that lab operators have been able to re-establish labs in alternative compounds within 3–4 days of strike, it is clear that some owners have rebuilt their compounds, where processing has been re-established within a couple of months. This has led to several compounds being hit more than once by USFOR-A.
Within a year, and not unsurprisingly, the operation that had begun with such fanfare was quietly closed down. The full report by Dr David Mansfield can be found here: http://www.lse.ac.uk/united-states/Assets/Documents/mansfield-april-update.pdf
For over 15 years, Alcis has been supporting and working with donors, policy makers, programme implementers and academics to better understand and operate within fragile and complex environments. As technology has evolved over this time, Alcis has continued to innovate a number of technology driven, joint methodologies that have been highly effective at providing robust, data centric, evidence bases for decision making in these environments.
