Al-Qaeda is in the throes of its own financial crisis according to the US Treasury, which says efforts to choke funding for the terrorist organisation are working.

According to Senior US Treasury official David Cohen, al-Qaeda's influence is waning as a result of its money concerns.

Listen to Newsline's interview with Christa Meindersma

Healthy finances
The Taliban, on the other hand, is in healthier financial shape, with the Afghan drugs trade boosting their coffers. While most of the Taliban’s funding comes from the Gulf, the many different strands of money that flow to the group are proving harder to restrict.

According to Christa Meindersma, deputy director of the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, the disparity in funding might have an effect on relations between the two groups in Afghanistan.

“The organisations are different. Al-Qaeda has global ambitions – the global jihad, anti-imperialist, anti-western ambitions. The Taliban has local, territorial ambitions. The two have worked together, but if money is drying up from international sources for al-Qaeda and both are looking at local sources, that could mean the Taliban seeing Al-Qaeda as a liability to their local ambitions.”

Targets
According to Meindersma that tension could in turn affect US policy in Afghanistan. President Obama faces tough strategic choices. Does he go for a smaller, military effort, going after al-Qaeda? Or a fully fledged counter insurgency that goes after both al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

“If al-Qaeda money is drying up, maybe [there’s the option] of a more focused strategy against al-Qaeda, while at the same time offering the Taliban some place at the negotiation table.”

Meindersma says that might encourage the Taliban to think twice before continuing to pursue their own insurgency.

“We have an opportunity for the carrot-and-the-stick approach. If President Obama threatens a troop surge, but indicates there is a place for the Taliban at the table, then it’s up to the Taliban to make a choice whether they want to be pursued in an all-out counter insurgency effort - or whether they see al-Qaeda for what it is, the spoiler of their own territorial ambitions.”