According to an article in The Wall Street Journal on March 27, 2001, in reference to a March 23, 2001, visit to the United States by Taliban ambassador Sayed Rahmatullah Hashimi: ” ‘Possible motivations for a State Department meeting with Hashimi include the desire to keep other Muslim sects from engaging in drug, gun, and terrorist activity in Afghanistan in order to clear the way for a proposed oil pipeline from Central Asia, through Afghanistan, to Pakistan. The pipeline project has been planned by American companies since the mid-1990s.’ ”
– Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, Forbidden Truth, Page 7