"There's Lithium in Them Thar Hills!"- Pentagon Report: Afghanistan Could 'Hold $1 Trillion in Mineral Deposits'

Polish Forces on patrol in apparently lithium-rich Ghanzi province Afghanistan, 2009.

Senior U.S. military officials and the Pentagon report that they have discovered vast mineral deposits in southern Afghanistan that could be worth up to US$1 trillion, according to a New York Times article published Monday. According to the Times report, a Pentagon study indicates that Afghanistan could be the 'Saudi Arabia of Lithium'- a soft metal that's a key component in batteries for laptop computers and cell phones. Iron, copper, gold, silver and cobalt deposits have also reportedly been discovered in the remote, strife-torn country.

The report indicated that the USGS began aerial surveys of Afghanistan's minerals as far back as 2006 and cross referenced it with Russian reports gathered from Soviet mining experts from the USSR's occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s that American geologists came across in Kabul's Afghan Geological Survey library in 2004 after acting on a tip from local geologists who withheld the documents from the Taliban until 2001. The surveys initial findings were so promising that a more comprehensive aerial study using 3-D imaging equipment was conducted, providing a more detailed map of the country and it's resources. Although the findings were promising, they languished for two years until a Pentagon-sponsored local economic development program that was transferred from Iraq to Afghanistan rediscovered the reports.

Much of the Lithium is believed to be along dried salt lakes in Western Afghanistan and the deposits in the southern Ghanzi province may contain as much as Bolivia's current stockpiles- Bolivia is currently the world's #1 producer of lithium.

Presently Afghanistan's economy is largely based on opium harvesting and weapons trafficking. There previously had been no large-scale mining operations in Afghanistan until 1974 when Soviets attempted to build an open-pit copper mine in Aynak that would eventually fall into disrepair and be abandoned after the 1979 Soviet invasion. Another attempt was made to revive the mine in the 1990s, but that was abandoned during the Taliban's rise to power. In October 2009, the present Afghan government reached an agreement with Chinese interests to re-open the Aynak valley facility. Presently geologists are currently finishing up a series of technical studies in the more remote reigons of Afghanistan before the bidding process is opened up to international investors.