By Azam Ahmed
A verdant oasis spread expansively through the desert, a broad expanse of emerald shoots and vivid red poppy flowers that reached towards the skyline.
The Taliban operated overtly, conducting a social experiment unlike anything previously seen in the country. Tens — then hundreds — of thousands of individuals migrated here to escape the conflict and cultivate poppy, evading American attempts to eradicate the crop.
The Taliban established a trauma center to care for the injured, profiting immensely, not solely from opium but also from methamphetamine and taxes on trade that flowed in and out of Afghanistan, generating millions each month.
During the conflict, this isolated district became a testing ground for a future Taliban regime, supplying funds for conflict and serving as a refuge for those fighting it.
However, everything has changed. The once-thriving Taliban town is swiftly declining.
The insurgents who once embraced opium to fuel their struggle have now prohibited it, mandating a ban that has nearly eradicated poppy and other illegal substances in Afghanistan.
In two years of peace, the Taliban has accomplished what the United States and its allies could not achieve in two decades of warfare. In regions where poppy used to dominate, scarcely a stalk remains.
Numerous labs designed to process heroin and methamphetamine have been shut down or eradicated. The drug market that invigorated this part of southern Afghanistan has largely been obliterated. Furthermore, the nation, already struggling without international support, has lost a substantial segment of its economy as a consequence.
In addition, the Taliban administration has tightened its taxation policies, leading to resident dissatisfaction and frustration. Many have relocated, except those unable to leave due to poverty or strong ties, like Abdul Khaliq.
“This is all coming to an end,” he remarked, gesturing towards the dwindling villages.
This district, Bakwa, had nearly nothing when he settled here 25 years ago, just a desolate stretch of desert. He constructed an empire out of dust, selling the pumps and solar panels that provided water for the opium boom, transforming Bakwa into a frontier for smugglers, traders, and farmers.
Now his narrative, much like Bakwa’s, has completed its cycle: foreigners have departed, the Taliban have regained control, the land devoid of poppy, and the terrain reverting to dust.
“It’s only a matter of time,” he stated.
The Afghan conflict encompassed many elements: a mission to neutralize al-Qaida and remove the group that harbored Osama bin Laden; an ambitious quest to establish a new Afghanistan, where Western principles collided with local traditions; a seemingly endless engagement, where the aim of winning often paled in comparison to the imperative of not losing.
It was equally a war on drugs.
The United States and its allies repeatedly attempted to disrupt the Taliban’s revenue stream and curb one of the world’s most severe issues: opium and heroin production.
The U.S. allocated nearly $9 billion on aggressive eradication and interdiction initiatives, yet Afghanistan continued to shatter its own records as the leading producer of illicit poppy globally.
What did change was the locations of that poppy cultivation. Gradually, farmers inundated previously vacant deserts in southwestern Afghanistan, desolate areas with little to no inhabitants prior.
At its zenith, the Taliban presided over a narco-state, a farm-to-table drug operation with scores of field labs converting opium into heroin and wild ephedra into meth for Europe, Asia, and beyond. By war’s end, Bakwa had evolved into a hub for the drug trade, host to the largest open-air drug market in the nation.
The Taliban also exhibited flexibility, both morally and financially. Although they prohibited poppy cultivation on religious grounds prior to the American invasion, they permitted farmers to grow as much as they desired throughout the conflict.
They imposed taxes leniently, often taking whatever farmers could afford, adopting a strategy aimed at winning hearts and minds. They also taxed smugglers, who readily supported a Taliban war effort that posed no hindrance to their businesses.
Bakwa rapidly became a breeding ground for governance. Taliban courts resolved a myriad of disputes while millions of dollars flowed each month to fund the Taliban’s mission beyond Bakwa and the southwest region.
Western officials set their sights on that revenue. They began with eradication efforts, then sought to persuade farmers to cultivate legal crops, and ultimately resorted to airstrikes against makeshift mud labs.
“At least $200 million of this opium industry goes into the Taliban’s bank accounts,” Gen. John Nicholson, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan in 2017, at the time of peak poppy production, stated. “And this fuels — truly finances the insurgency.”
However, the Taliban’s customs checkpoints were equally crucial in Bakwa, or even more so, generating taxes valued at $10 million monthly or more, according to Taliban officials.
“The money from agriculture, including poppy, funded the war” in these regions, noted Haji Maulavi Asif, who is now the Taliban’s governor for Bakwa district. “But the funds from the customs operations supported the entire movement.”
With the ban on poppy in place, the farmers the Taliban once depended on feel betrayed, while the Taliban seeks to govern without its financial support.
“While economically, the choice to outlaw poppy has significant costs, politically it is sound,” Asif commented. “We are silencing the world’s criticisms about our poppy cultivation and involvement in the global drug trade.”
The Americans finished their withdrawal in 2021, leading to the Taliban’s takeover. A few months later, the supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, announced that cultivating poppy was “entirely forbidden throughout the country.”
The Taliban asserted they had detained multiple traffickers, confiscated almost 2,000 tons of drugs, and raided hundreds of heroin labs. In 2023, they obliterated numerous labs in Bakwa, burning them down.
Whereas the Americans had selectively targeted from the air, causing harm to innocents in the process, the Taliban effectively dismantled nearly all laboratories in Bakwa.
Farmers hold the Taliban accountable for their suffering. For almost 15 years, their poppy — and the taxes the Taliban collected from it — sustained the insurgents’ efforts to establish governance.
Now that the Taliban has achieved its goals, they seem to have forgotten those from Bakwa who facilitated this, the residents lament. Farmers too impoverished to leave are now sending their sons to work on harvests elsewhere, renting them out as laborers.
Like many, Khaliq attributes the blame to the Taliban.
He, like others, is aware that some individuals continue to hoard opium reserves to sell at elevated prices due to the ban. Prices have surged more than fivefold since 2021, and some are still profiting handsomely.
However, everything he possesses has depreciated in value: his land and equipment, along with hundreds of solar panels arranged in neat rows, all waiting for farmers who will never return. The desolate furrows of soil swirl like fingerprints across a monotonous desert, a reminder of a bygone era.
“This is life,” he reflects. “Everything reaches its conclusion. One day, I too will be finished. Yet, even if this chapter ends, another will begin somewhere else.”
