KABUL – Afghanistan *Ministry of Mines and Petroleum (MoMP) says most ofthe Afghan provinces that have underground mines have been unsecured by theinsurgents and become the main source of revenue for them.*

MoMP officials declare that the armed insurgents illegally extract minesin key provinces such as; Helmand, Badakhshan, Nangarhar, Ghazni andLogar, Ariana News has reported.

“We have problems in Helmand, Nangarhar, Ghazni, Badakhshan and otherprovinces in terms of the illegal extraction of mines. But we have ourmeasures and shared all information with the security organs,” said AbdulQadir Motfi, the spokesman of MoMP.

Recently, the Taliban group has reportedly fueled its revenue from Rokhamstone in Deshew district of Helmand province.

“It has been two to three months that tons of stones have been extractedfrom the Deshew district which is under the Taliban. It is clear that thegovernment has no control in those areas,” said Karim Atal, a HelmandProvincial Council member.

But what are the government’s measures about illegal mining of the armedoppositions and powerful?

“Those mines that are under our control extract in legal process, but thiswar is imposed on Afghanistan. There are active regional intelligences thatare against the government and smuggle the mines,” said Dawlat Waziri, thespokesman of the Defense Ministry.

Afghanistan has some of the richest mineral deposits in the world, butextracting them has proven difficult amid years of instability and war.

There were modest signs of improvement in 2017, most notably the Afghangovernment’s ability to manage and report its earnings from miningroyalties and taxes, which it couldn’t do much at all a few years ago.

But challenges remain to attract more meaningful foreign investment andcapitalize on the country’s resources.

The government in Kabul has long viewed the natural resources containedbeneath Afghanistan’s mountains and deserts, estimated to be worth as muchas $1 trillion to $3 trillion, as a potential economic panacea.

But an array of problems beyond the country’s war corruption, inadequateinfrastructure, legal uncertainty, illegal mining and wavering investorshas diminished hopes for Afghanistan’s mining potential.