Reuters: VIENNA — Opium production in Afghanistan increased this year to one of the highest levels on record as efforts to eradicate the crop in a country that provides much of the world’s heroin collapsed, the United Nations said Wednesday. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reports annually on opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, and
KABUL, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) — A senior Afghan official called for joint efforts of the international community to fight against drugs on Monday. “Combating drug problems and getting rid of the menace to the society which is essential for ensuring public health, human rights and sustainable development requires collective efforts,” Salamat Azimi, the Afghan Minister
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty August 22, 2016 Around 100 U.S. troops in Afghanistan have been deployed to a southern city at risk of falling to the Taliban. The spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan said the soldiers had arrived in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand Province, to provide training and support to Afghan forces.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR): “My husband was not only smoking heroin but also stealing others people’s things,” she told IWPR, adding that he had also taken all the money she earned as a seamstress and sold all their household goods. “Then people started coming to our home and asked me to pay for what
Khairullah Rasooli, Mohammad Habibzada VOA News / July 3, 2016 During the past three months 740 suspected drug smugglers have been arrested in Afghanistan. Afghanistan Deputy Interior Minister for Anti-Narcotics Baaz Mohammad Ahmadi told VOA Afghanistan the arrests were made during 588 police operations across the country. “Police destroyed six narcotics-processing laboratories during these operations,” said
Silent Crow News: The question is why heroin use has dramatically increased since 2002? Maybe the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 after the September 11th attacks under the Bush regime had something to do with it? As long as the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan continues under the guise of establishing a democratic government, the flow
Tolo News: Afghanistan is by a long way still the world’s largest opium producer, accounting for some 70 percent (3,300 tons) of global opium production, according to the United Nations World Drug Report of 2016. Myanmar is the second largest producer of the drug at 14 per cent (650 tons) of global production. Click here to read
Xinhua: “I hate poppies and the drug trade but poverty and my dire need for money have forced me into this lucrative business and I can earn a relatively good income and support my family from farming the plant,” a farmer in the southern Kandahar province, Sadiq Agha, 55, told Xinhua recently. Click here to read
Tolo News: Officials of the Helmand provincial council and a senator in the Meshrano Jirga (Upper House of Parliament) said Sunday that the fighting in Helmand has temporarily decreased because Taliban fighters are too busy producing and smuggling drugs in the province. The officials said it was now the time for stepped-up action by security forces against
Pepe Escobar (via Counter Punch): The Pentagon said Mansour was on Obama’s kill list because he had become “an obstacle to peace and reconciliation.” There’s way more to it, of course. Bets can be made that Mansour’s kill will not reduce Afghanistan’s opium production – which has been steadily on the rise for years now. Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada,