Roshan Noorzai VOA News December 11, 2021 Farmers in Afghanistan say that they will continue to grow poppy amid uncertainty over the Taliban’s poppy eradication policy. “We have no choice but to cultivate opium poppy,” said Noor, 52, a farmer living in a remote village in the western Farah province. For safety reasons, he did
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty November 17, 2021 Afghanistan’s illegal opium production increased by 8 percent in 2021 compared to last year, the United Nations said, as the opiates from the war-torn country continue to dominate the international black market, supplying 8-in-10 users worldwide. Afghanistan harvested 6,800 tons of opium in 2021, the UN Office on
The Guardian (UK): The Taliban’s announcement that it plans to ban the production of opium in Afghanistan does not faze seasoned dealer Ahmed Khan. “They could not fund their war if there were no opium,” says Khan, who operates out of Baramcha, close to the border with Pakistan. The Taliban has benefited the most from
New York Post: Between 2002 and 2019, American taxpayers spent at least $9 billion to eliminate or transform the poppy fields that produced almost all of the world’s heroin — but instead ended up tripling that production, quadrupling the acreage covered by the deadly flowers, and intensifying the insurgency that plagued the country. As a
Ayaz Gul VOA News May 3, 2021 ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN – The United Nations said Monday that opium cultivation in conflict-ridden Afghanistan increased by 37% in 2020 compared to the previous year, potentially producing an estimated 6,300 tons of opium. The findings are part of a new survey the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
BBC News: Despite the incredible resources the American military were pouring in, Dr Mansfield and his team are now convinced that the US Air Force was using 21st century fighter jets to bomb little more than mud huts. Opium now accounts for around a third of Afghanistan’s GDP, he says. It is by far the country’s biggest
AFP: A vast field of towering white poppies sways gently in the breeze, silky petals sometimes tumbling to the ground, a visible marker of the resilience of Afghanistan’s lucrative opium trade. The sight of a seemingly endless expanse of opium-producing flowers is common across rural Afghanistan, but this farm is in the centre of government-controlled Lashkar
Time: The U.S. Sent Its Most Advanced Fighter Jets to Blow Up Cheap Opium Labs. Now It’s Canceling the Program – After hundreds of airstrikes failed to curtail the Taliban’s $200 million-a-year opium trade, the U.S. military quietly ended a yearlong campaign that targeted drug labs and networks laced around the Afghan countryside. The end of