Taliban cash crunch leads to manpower crunch

Strategy Page:

The Taliban announced a new strategy, which involves sending assassins and suicide bombers after government officials and foreign troops. There will be less emphasis on have large numbers of armed Taliban out and about (where they are spotted from the air, and attacked).... Even though the Taliban pay their gunmen twice, or more, than soldiers or policemen, the high loss rate has made recruiting difficult. Al Qaeda, which is desperate for cash, is willing to help with Taliban suicide bombing operations. The suicide bombers usually work for free, so this cost cutting measure avoids a collapse of the Taliban finances....
This is the second post in two days on the Taliban, al Qaeda cash crunch. It raises questions about the viability of their making money from the poppy crops as well as their donations coming directly to al Qaeda. Recall that Zawahiri was asking Zarqawi to send money to them before the latter was killed. It appears that Iraq has become the cash cow for al Qaeda. It finances itself there through kidnappings and theft. The question that war opponents should be asking themselves is will al Qaeda in Iraq have more resources from these operations should we leave. It would be delusional to think there would be less.

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