Tensions in Afghanistan’s Takhar province between locals and a gold mining company erupted into violence this week, resulting in at least four deaths and the suspension of gold mining operations by the Taliban.
A spokesperson for the Taliban’s Interior Ministry, Abdul Mateen Qani, told media that mining activities in Takhar province’s Chah Ab district had been halted following the outbreak of fighting between locals and personnel of a gold mining company. Qani said that three locals and one company employee had been killed and that two people – one local and one company official – had been arrested.
Taliban officials have not specified the name of the company or who owns it; they have also not clarified what triggered the violence. ToloNews, however, reported that the gold mine in Chah Ab district had been contracted out to a Chinese company.
Afghanistan International had reported on January 5 that the protests in Chah Ab district were sparked by concerns over environmental damage and water shortages and linked the companies involved to Bashar Noorzai, a notorious drug trafficking kingpin. Noorzai, arrested by U.S. authorities in 2005 and sentenced to life in prison following a 2008 conviction for smuggling $50 million worth of heroin into the United States, was released in a prisoner swap in 2022. He has since become deeply influential in the relationship between China and the Taliban, a relationship centered on mining operations.
At the time of its January 5 report, sources told Afghanistan International that at least three locals and one Taliban member had already been killed.
Subsequent reporting by the AFP echoed Afghanistan International’s framing of the unrest. One local resident reportedly told the AFP that violence had broken out after “the area that supplied the local people with drinking water was destroyed by the miners.”
On January 6, the Taliban’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum announced that it had dispatched a delegation to investigate the incident. Spokesperson for the ministry Homayoun Afghan commented, “Disputes have arisen between the local people and a contracted gold mining company in the mining areas of Chah Ab district in Takhar province, which unfortunately have resulted in both human and financial losses.”
Chah Ab district sits in the very northern part of Takhar province, bordering Tajikistan’s Khatlon Region across the Panj River.
The areas has seen an increase in violence centered around mining operations.
In late November, three Chinese workers employed by Shohin SM, a private gold mining company, were killed in an attack in Khatlon Region’s Shamsiddin Shohin district. Tajik officials blamed the attack on “criminal” elements from Afghanistan. A few days later, two more Chinese workers were killed in a neighboring district of Tajikistan. Then in late December, two Tajik border guards (and three attackers) were killed in a firefight near the village of Kavo in Shamsiddin Shohin district.
