Afghanistan: The Opium Trade
8 minutes, 2001
Ref: 187

For the past decade Afghanistan has been at the centre of the world's opium trade. Much of it has been grown to fund fighting between the various Mujahadeen factions, and the on-going hostilities between the Taliban and the opposition Northern Alliance. Last year the Taliban claimed it had ended the heroin business, when it publicly destroyed the country's poppy fields. But now they say farmers are free to grow poppies if there is a war with the U.S.