No image available
/ 28 August 2006

At least 17 killed in Afghan market blast

A suspected suicide bomber killed at least 17 people and wounded almost 50 in a crowded bazaar in southern Afghanistan on Monday, the latest attack in a surge of violence in the Taliban heartland. Several children were among those killed or hurt in the blast in Lashkar Gah, capital of the country’s prime drug-growing province of Helmand.

No image available
/ 20 March 2006

Afghans follow cobblestone road away from drugs

In southern Helmand province, one of the main sources of the world’s opium and heroin, turbaned men fit stones into a cobbled road that is meant to lead them away from growing drugs. Crouching, they peer up at a convoy of armoured vehicles and gun-toting American soldiers that rumbles along the first such road in southern Afghanistan, the most dangerous part of this violent land.

No image available
/ 13 March 2006

Opium and the Taliban, an explosive cocktail

Taliban rebels determined to keep southern Afghanistan in chaos have teamed up with drug barons against the government and its opium eradication campaign launched last week. The campaign to destroy opium poppy fields kicked off on March 8 in southern Helmand, the producer of most of Afghanistan’s opium crop — which makes up nearly 90% of the world total.