Emeralds from Swat valley funding Taliban's jihad against West

The high-quality emeralds obtained from mines in Pakistan's restive Swat valley are being used to finance the war against the West by Taliban, who smuggle the gems to Jaipur and then to the world markets, a media report said on Sunday.
    
Swat, which holds one of Asia's two largest known deposits of high-quality emeralds, was virtually taken over by the Taliban after entering into a peace deal with the NWFP provincial government.
    
Obtained from mines in the picturesque Swat, the precious stones are smuggled to Jaipur and then transported to Bangkok, Switzerland and Israel to be sold in gem markets to fund the Taliban's jihad against West, The Sunday Telegraph said on Sunday.

They are cut and polished into lustrous gems that adorn the world's finest jewellery, and sold to customers who have no idea that their money may end up financing the Taliban, the paper said.
    
The unlicensed trade in the region's emeralds provides the Taliban with cash to buy weapons for their struggle against Pakistan's government.

"The Taliban use drug money for jihad in Afghanistan. The same thing is now happening in Swat. Money from emeralds is sponsoring their so-called jihad," the report quoted Brig Mahmood Shah, former chief of security for Pakistan's tribal areas as saying.

Militants have taken control of the lucrative emerald mines since they took control of the poor region in the north of the country under a controversial peace deal last month.

The Taliban are using the money from the sale of the emeralds to help finance attacks on NATO forces in neighbouring Afghanistan and to support their drive to extend 'sharia law' into more regions of Pakistan.
    
"We receive one third of the profit from the gems and the rest goes to the workers," Muslim Khan, the Taliban spokesman in Swat told the newspaper.

"We know that all the minerals have been created by Allah, the mighty and the merciful, for the benefit of his creatures. We should take the opportunity," he said.

Evidence of the militants' growing stranglehold emerged last week in a gruesome video showing a 17-year-old girl being publicly whipped.

The report said that one newly reopened mine near the Swat capital, Mingora, had been sealed since 1998 because of a legal dispute between the government and a contractor. 

Now workers use picks and shovels to dig for emeralds, excavating dozens of new pits and creating a cratered landscape.

"We have given instructions to workers to lessen the amount of destruction," said Wahidullah Khan, a Taliban soldier at the mine.

Mines in Pakistan and Afghanistan contain about 10 per cent of the world's total emerald deposits, and during the 1980s the mines yielded a quarter of a million carats of the stones - worth 15 million pounds in rough, uncut form.
    
Taliban militants recently took control of mines in the Gojaro Killay Amnavi and Fiza Ghat areas in Swat.

"They have engaged 1,000 people and the number is increasing," a Taliban commander told the newspaper. "It is a great opportunity for the people, as there is so much poverty and unemployment here."
    
"I earn at least Rs 1000 per day. When I find a stone during digging, I take it to the Taliban's office here. It's weighed there and my share of the price is given to me," the newspaper quoted a 24-year-old worker as saying. He said the mine had proved a "blessing" to poor people in the area.

"If the Taliban continue selling the emeralds they will become very strong and it will be impossible for the government to dislodge them," a government mining official in the area said.