The Taliban are digging an enormous canal

Taliban officials have started talking up a new canal under construction in the arid north of Afghanistan. A video recently posted on YouTube shows shiny diggers roaring over sand dunes and workers from different ethnic groups toiling together. The Islamist regime says some 5,500 people are working around the clock on the project, using over 3,300 bits of machinery. Once completed, the Qosh Tepa Canal will divert water from the Amu Darya river for irrigation. The river, once known as the Oxus, rises in Afghanistan and Tajikistan, flows into Uzbekistan and is one of the longest in Central Asia. The Taliban expects the project to turn 550,000 hectares of desert into much-needed farmland.