By Zack Kopplin and Margaux Benn When OCCRP reported that former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had granted access to a company, part-owned by his brother,
How Afghanistan’s President Helped His Brother Secure Lucrative Mining Deals with a U.S. Contractor
This article was written by our Investigator Zack Kopplin and was originally published here.
Afghanistan’s crags and valleys hold at least a trillion dollars’ worth of minerals, first mapped by Soviet geologists in the 1970s. Local warlords and foreign powers have plundered these deposits ever since.
The Taliban and other armed groups have battled both the central government and each other for control of the mines, using them to fund their insurgencies. Even former U.S. President Donald Trump coveted Afghanistan’s gold, lithium, uranium, and other mineral riches. In 2017, Trump was persuaded to keep troops in the country by its president, Ashraf Ghani, who dangled the prospect of mining contracts for American companies.
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