Asia | Afghanistan

The Taliban have launched an impressive new war on drugs

After two decades of lawlessness, Afghanistan has a government able to enforce its writ

Taliban security personnel destroy a poppy plantation
Taliban governanceImage: Getty Images
|NAD ALI, HELMAND PROVINCE

Early this month, the Taliban turned up at Akhtar Mohammad’s farm in Helmand province, in southern Afghanistan, wielding sticks. In half an hour they destroyed a field of poppies that had taken the farmer a year to cultivate—leaving Mr Mohammad close to despair. “Now the Taliban have destroyed my opium I demand they feed my children,” he says. “Or I will have to sell one of them to feed the others.”

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This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “A new drug war”

From the June 24th 2023 edition

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