COMMENT: Twenty years in Afghanistan. What did we actually build?

Two decades of spending, programmes and training left Afghanistan with projects but not a state able to run itself once outside support was withdrawn. / Wanman uthmaniyyah - UnsplashFacebook

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By Mateusz Chrzanowski November 8, 2026

Twenty years. An international military presence, extraordinary expenditure, a new government, a trained army and an enormous reconstruction effort. Then, in August 2021, the Taliban returned to power.

What exactly did we build? That question matters more than another argument about whether the withdrawal happened too quickly.

The collapse exposed something more fundamental: Afghanistan had not acquired the independent capabilities needed to sustain the political and security order created around it. The United States spent approximately $145bn trying to reconstruct Afghanistan, including its security forces, public institutions and economy. It also spent hundreds of billions on the war itself.

The money was real. The programmes were real. But expenditure is not architecture, and activity is not a functioning state. A military force can secure roads, defend installations and defeat an opponent in battle.

It cannot, by those operations alone, create a productive economy, legitimate institutions, capable administration or a society with a credible future. For that, a country needs an operating model.

Start with employment. What does an ordinary person do when the foreign soldiers leave? Where are the factories, workshops, logistics businesses and commercial employers? Where does a young person acquire a profession? What income allows a family to pay for housing, food, education and transport without depending indefinitely on foreign assistance?

Then examine infrastructure. Electricity is not useful as an isolated construction project. It must serve homes, industry, water systems, hospitals and businesses.

A road has value when it connects productive activity. A school needs teachers, budgets and a labour market in which education becomes useful. A hospital needs trained staff, supplies and institutions capable of keeping it operational. These are not separate projects to be counted in a report. They are interdependent functions of a country. The security architecture is equally important.

An army is not independent because its soldiers possess uniforms, weapons and certificates from foreign instructors. It is independent when it can command itself, maintain its equipment, move supplies, pay personnel, gather intelligence and sustain operations without another country's contractors, aircraft or logistics. Afghanistan demonstrated the consequences of confusing trained forces with selfsustaining forces.

The Afghan military remained heavily dependent on American support. When that support was withdrawn, the military structure rapidly unravelled. A functioning state cannot have its most important dependencies permanently located outside the state. Political institutions face the same test.

A ministry is not an institution merely because it has an office, a minister and a budget. It must have an operating purpose, competent personnel, enforceable rules, reliable funding and a relationship with the population it serves. And people must see a reason to defend the order that those institutions represent.

This is where reconstruction should begin: not with a collection of contracts, but with the architecture of the future country. Define the functions required for independent operation. Determine their dependencies. Build productive capacity and public institutions together. Test whether the whole system can function when outside support is progressively removed. If the answer is no, the mission is not finished, regardless of the amount spent or the number of completed projects.

There is also a migration consequence. When an economy collapses, institutions disappear and security fails, people leave. Europe then debates fences, asylum procedures and deportations as though migration started at its border. It did not.

The causes were produced years earlier, often in regions where Western powers were deeply involved. Managing arrivals while ignoring the failures that produce displacement is another attempt to solve a systemic problem at its final stage. Afghanistan should have taught us a basic engineering lesson: a protected system is not necessarily a viable system.

Twenty years should have been enough to understand the difference. A military presence can hold a country together temporarily. Only a functioning country can hold itself together.

Mateusz Chrzanowski is a System of Systems Architect and Infrastructure System Engineer, founder of Archestral Studio, member of INCOSE, and author of The Layer Above. With 15 years of experience in system architecture and complex operations, his work focuses on the dependencies and structures that determine how complex systems function.

UNESCO at 80: 'Attacks on culture strike at the very heart of who we are'

Eight decades after its creation, the United Nations' cultural arm is fighting harder than ever to protect global heritage in a world where conflict is on the rise, and the erasure of identity has become a weapon.


Issued on: 07/11/2026 - RFI

The ancient ruins of Palmyra, central Syria, seen at sunrise in August 2025. Palmyra is one of six Syrian sites inscribed on the Unesco World Heritage List. © Omar Haj Kadour / AFP

For the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), preserving cultural heritage helps to ensure that histories and identities are not erased in conflicts such as those currently being waged in Palestine, Sudan and Yemen.

"Cultures do not necessarily exist within national borders. There have always been exchanges, interactions and mutual influences across the globe. Culture must not be used for political ends," says Krista Pikkat, director of UNESCO's Culture and Emergencies Unit.

The deliberate destruction of cultural heritage, due to its symbolic, religious and historical value, has become increasingly common over recent decades, starting with the wars of the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia.

Researcher Helen Walasek, author of Bosnia and the Destruction of Cultural Heritage, speaking in 2019, said: "[We must not] view destruction in isolation, as a phenomenon curiously distinct from other atrocities. On the contrary, destruction was an inextricable part of ethnic cleansing during the Bosnian War and constituted one of the main objectives of those waging the conflict."

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'Erasing all traces'

Recent years are littered with examples of deliberate cultural destruction.

Afghanistan's Buddhas of Bamiyan, carved in the 6th century, were blown up by the Taliban in 2001. In 2003, the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad was looted during the US invasion and the fall of Saddam Hussein.

In 2012, extremist Islamist groups including al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb destroyed 14 of the 16 Unesco World Heritage-listed Sufi saint mausoleums in Timbuktu, Mali.

Irina Bokova, then director-general of Unesco, told Le Monde at the time: "When everything else is destroyed, it is culture that gives a people the strength to rebuild themselves. Those who attacked the mausoleums of Timbuktu... know exactly where to strike: at the very heart of people's identities. Beyond strategy and geopolitics, we are witnessing the deliberate destruction of a shared heritage dating back a thousand years."

In 2015, Islamic State jihadists attacked the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria, while in Ukraine, hundreds of cultural heritage sites have been targeted by Russia since the full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Since 2023, the Gaza Strip has seen its heritage methodically erased by the Israeli army. Today more than 70 percent of its historical and cultural sites have been destroyed or damaged – including the Great Al-Omari Mosque in Gaza, which has in its time been an Egyptian temple, a Byzantine church, a 7th-century mosque, a Crusader cathedral and then a mosque once more.

A person walks at the ruins of al-Omari mosque, which was destroyed in the Israeli military offensive, in Gaza City on 18 October 2024. © Dawoud Abu Alkas / Reuters

In Lebanon, Israeli strikes have hit the area surrounding the Roman ruins at Baalbek, as well as Roman ruins at Tyre, an ancient Phoenician city which also preserves significant remains of medieval buildings dating from the Crusades.

Unesco placed 34 cultural sites threatened by Israeli bombing under "temporary enhanced protection" in November 2024.

Since February, Iran’s heritage too has been under attack – including the legendary Golestan Palace, which suffered significant damage from shockwaves and debris during US and Israeli airstrikes in March.

"Our culture, the heritage we carry, but also our customs and traditions, are truly at the heart of who we are," says Unesco's Pikkat.

"We are indeed seeing targeted attacks because of the cultural significance of heritage, no doubt intended to intimidate a community, weaken social ties or, perhaps even erase all traces of communities' presence on their land and in the history of that land. In a way, it is also an attack on cultural diversity. They strike at the very heart of who we are, at the heart of our identity."

Enshrined in international law

In the aftermath of the Second World War, British Prime Minister Clement Attlee said: “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed."

This declaration was enshrined in the preamble to the UNESCO Constitution, which came into force on 4 November 1946.

"Throughout human history, cultural heritage has been destroyed in times of war," says Pikkat. "This is also, to some extent, why Unesco adopted the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict in 1954."

Under the auspices of the UN organisation, this was followed in 1972 by the World Heritage Convention.

The Second Protocol to the Hague Convention (1999) – described as the "operational arm of the Convention" – was then adopted following atrocities committed against cultural property during the armed conflicts of the 1980s and '90s.

Although not ratified by the US or Israel, it stipulates that any aggressor may be prosecuted before international courts for war crimes.

The convention also says that parties must incorporate the recommendations into their national legislation, and must instil in their armed forces a spirit of respect for the cultures and cultural property of all peoples.

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The UN also has procedures in place to prevent destruction caused by conflicts. Protected sites are marked by signs or flags, and Unesco provides belligerents with the geographical coordinates of protected sites from the outset of a conflict.

“It is therefore truly a matter of national responsibility," says Pikkat. "By incorporating the provisions of the conventions into their legislation, states take on the responsibility of implementing concrete measures to protect their heritage, organising training and, in the event of a breach of these laws, prosecuting those responsible before national and international courts."

To date, no state has ever been brought to trial for the destruction and looting of heritage, despite accountability for attacks on heritage being part of the mandate of the International Criminal Court.

"The obstacle is jurisdictional competence and political will," Bijan Rouhani, a researcher with the Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa project, told the BBC last October.

Fleeing Iraqis walk past the heavily damaged al-Nuri mosque in the city of Mosul in northern Iraq, 4 July 2017. The mosque, famous for its 12th-century leaning minaret, was destroyed by Islamic State and has been a focal point of Unesco's restoration efforts since 2020. © AP - Felipe Dana

Today, the protection of cultural heritage is increasingly regarded as a human right, and preserving humanity’s heritage also means helping to rebuild a community torn apart by war.

"In Mosul, for example, we saw that to rehabilitate a city, it was not enough simply to restore buildings, mosques, churches or historic houses," says Pikkat.

"We also had to restore the spirit. Buildings without the communities that have a connection to that heritage are empty cities."

This article has been adapted from the original version in French by Anne Bernas.

ANTI-VAXXERS

Gunmen kill policemen guarding polio vaccinators in Pakistan

03.11.2026

Photo: -/PPI via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

Gunmen shot and killed two policemen deployed on security detail for polio vaccinators near the Afghan border on Tuesday as health workers carry out a door-to-door vaccination drive in Pakistan.

The attack occurred in the Mohmand district of the north-western province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, police official Shakeel Khan said.

“At least two policemen were killed and another was wounded in the attack,” Khan said. The health workers remained unharmed, but drive has been halted temporarily.

Meanwhile in a separate incident, at least four health workers on vaccination duty went missing from Tank district of the province.

The latest attacks come on the second day of a sub-national polio vaccination campaign that aims to protect around 24 million children in 97 high-risk districts across the country.

The Health Ministry said that the vaccination campaign will be “implemented simultaneously in Pakistan and Afghanistan – the last two endemic countries in the world for wild poliovirus – and supported by strong cross-border coordination."

On Sunday, the country reported the eighth polio case of the year.
Officials say thousands of children miss their vaccination due to the surge in violence, which has resulted in a resurgence of the crippling disease.

Militants linked with al-Qaeda often attack health workers. Dozens of vaccine handlers and security officials have been killed by Taliban militants in the past.
The militants accuse the health workers of acting as spies and claim the polio vaccine is intended to make Muslim children sterile.

Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan are among the few countries in the world where new polio cases still surface.

(c) 2026 dpa Deutsche Presse Agentur GmbH

 

Pakistan pins its Afghan border war on India

Islamabad's chief military spokesman has threatened Kabul with serious consequences and cast the TTP and BLA as Indian proxies, folding two hostile frontiers into one. / Mohammad Hussaini - Unsplash\

By Mark Buckton in New Taipei November 2, 2026

Pakistan's army has accused Afghanistan's Taliban of sheltering militants and warned it of serious consequences, while alleging that India is behind the violence.

Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, who heads Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the military's media wing, made the threat in an interview with an unnamed foreign outlet, Dunya News reported on November 1. He called India the biggest sponsor of terrorism inside Pakistan, cast the Taliban administration as New Delhi's proxy and described both Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) as Indian instruments.

Islamabad had a single demand, he said: that Kabul stop backing the militants who operate on Pakistani soil. If it did not, serious consequences would follow. His warning to the Taliban accused Kabul of sheltering TTP leader Noor Wali Mehsud along with Bashir Zeb and Gul Bahadur, and of letting fighters and weapons flow across the border. Pakistan's forces could handle any threat from Afghanistan, drones included, he added.

By merging the western frontier with the eastern rivalry, the generals are telling audiences at home and abroad that the Afghan conflict is India's war fought by other means. That account turns every bombing in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan into proof of a foreign hand rather than a failure of Pakistani policy. For now, New Delhi has rejected earlier accusations that it arms anti-Pakistan groups, and Islamabad has put no public evidence on the table.

The two armies traded fire along the Durand Line in October 2025, in the same week that the Taliban's foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, was in New Delhi, where India said it would turn its Kabul mission into a full embassy. A ceasefire was followed by talks in Istanbul that broke up without a deal.

"Regrettably, the Afghan side gave no assurances, kept deviating from the core issue and resorted to blame game, deflection and ruses," said Information Minister Attaullah Tarar after the first round.

Pakistan then shut the crossings, cutting bilateral trade to below $1bn a year, and business groups put the cost to Pakistan at more than $4.5bn by December. Open war came on February 26, when Afghan forces attacked border posts along the 2,600 km frontier and Islamabad launched Operation Ghazab lil-Haq. In March Kabul said a Pakistani strike on a drug rehabilitation centre in the capital had killed about 400 people, which Islamabad denied. Mediation by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar bought only a pause for Eid.

Rounds of talks in Doha, Istanbul, Riyadh and Urumqi never produced the written guarantees Islamabad wanted, and in June Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said the security talks had collapsed. He put the number of Pakistani soldiers and civilians killed in militant attacks since 2022 at more than 4,300. Pakistani aircraft struck eastern Afghanistan twice that month, and the UN mission in the country counted at least 28 civilians dead in the second raid. Washington backed Pakistan's right to self-defence all the same.

After further strikes on Kunar and Paktika in September, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid promised that Afghans would deliver "an appropriate response".

Inside Pakistan, the armed forces recorded 3,145 militant incidents and 819 deaths among soldiers, police and civilians between January and early August, along with 28 suicide bombings they blamed on fighters based across the border. One of those, at an anti-militant rally in Kabal in the Swat Valley on August 2, killed at least 14 people. In Balochistan, ISPR now routinely brands the separatists it fights as Fitna al-Hindustan, a label that writes India into every casualty report.

India handed the generals material when it struck targets across Pakistan during Operation Sindoor in May 2025 after a militant attack at Pahalgam in Kashmir killed 26 civilians, and the two governments were still arguing over who won that war at the UN General Assembly in September. There, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, without naming Pakistan, accused a "serial practitioner of terrorism" of distorting the record.

New Delhi has also kept its channel to Kabul open, and on October 14 it held consultations with Russia on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Moscow in July 2025 became the first country to recognise the Taliban government.

Washington sounds sympathetic. Speaking in Atlanta, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said:

"Pakistan is concerned about terrorist attacks that are being sponsored from the territory of Afghanistan. They feel that the Taliban is not doing enough to constrain those attacks, and they've taken action against it."

Pakistan's Foreign Office welcomed the remarks on November 1 and said it would back sincere efforts by the US and other friendly states to broker dialogue with Kabul. It then attached a price: verifiable action against the TTP, the BLA and the other groups it says operate from Afghan soil.

The information ministry had gone further the day before, calling terrorism launched from Afghan territory a red line and reserving Pakistan's right to take whatever steps it judges necessary, within international law, to remove threats to its security.

That is the condition Kabul has refused for a year, and Chaudhry's interview makes it harder still to meet. A Taliban government that denies sheltering the TTP is unlikely to move against fighters it is now told are Indian agents, since doing so would concede Islamabad's whole case. By binding the western and eastern border flare-ups, Pakistan's generals have made any settlement with the Taliban hostage to a rivalry with New Delhi that still shows no sign of cooling.

Trump Plan to Deport Afghan Immigrants, Refugees Condemned as ‘Sickening’

“The consequences could be prison, torture, or worse,” said one human rights defender.


Refugees from Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, and Myanmar hold a demonstration in front of the US Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, on June 19, 2025.
(Photo by Aditya Irawan/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Oct 30, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


The Trump administration is preparing to deport more than 150 Afghan immigrants and refugees to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan via Pakistan, a move that drew fierce condemnation Friday from a range of critics—including human rights defenders and Democratic US lawmakers—who warned that such expulsions would place many of the deportees’ lives in grave danger.

The New York Times reported that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has transferred Afghan detainees from facilities around the country to Louisiana in preparation for a chartered deportation flight expected to leave as soon as Monday.

The administration reportedly intends to send the Afghans to Pakistan, whose government would then expel them across the border into Afghanistan, where the Taliban has ruled since the US withdrew from the country in defeat over five years ago.

According to the Times, those slated for deportation include relatives of people who aided the US military invasion and occupation and at least one gay man. Both categories of people would face possible execution or severe persecution by the Taliban.



“Five years ago, Americans watched Afghans cling to planes to escape the Taliban. On Monday, our government plans to charter one back to their persecutors’ hands,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of refugee resettlement organization Global Refuge, said in a statement Friday.

“For the people on that manifest, the consequences could be prison, torture, or worse,” she added. “For their families here, some of whom served alongside US servicemembers, it means losing a loved one without knowing whether they’ll ever hear from them again.”

Vignarajah implored the Trump administration to halt or reverse the plan before the flight departs.

“Pakistan is patently unsafe for Afghans,” she said. “Its own government has made that clear by hounding them out of the country by the millions. Deporting Afghans into that crackdown is a deliberate decision to put them in harm’s way.”

Since 2023, Pakistan’s government has expelled more than 2.7 million Afghans, according to Global Refuge, and has vowed to remove approximately 1.5 million who remain in the country regardless of their immigration status. The United Nations has documented killings, arbitrary detention, and torture of people associated with Afghanistan’s former US-backed government and security forces.

The Taliban has also systematically stripped Afghan women and girls of the rights they gained during the US invasion, banning them from secondary schools, universities, and most employment, while imposing sweeping and draconian restrictions on their lives.

“Individuals returned to Afghanistan face grave, systematic dangers, including arbitrary detentions, executions, public flogging, and retaliatory violence,” the group Human Rights First said Thursday. “Women and girls face severe restrictions on basic freedoms, including systematic denials of education, employment, and public speech.”



Several Democratic US lawmakers, including Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, decried the planned deportations.

“We made a promise to our Afghan allies—that after aiding and protecting our troops during the conflict in Afghanistan, America would not abandon them,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). “This administration is betraying that promise, deporting them to potential torture and death.”

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) posted: “While he hopes nobody is watching, Trump greenlit the expulsion of more than 150 Afghans back to Taliban rule, where they will face almost certain persecution, torture, or worse. Accountability for Trump’s cruel immigration agenda cannot come soon enough.”



Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) also weighed in, writing on social media, “Our Afghan allies risked everything to help the United States.”

“Now Trump plans to send their relatives back to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan,” he added. “Repaying their sacrifice with betrayal is shameful and will make it much harder for America to secure assistance in future conflicts.”

After Taliban Opium Ban, New Global Hub Emerges In Afghan Borderlands With Iran, Pakistan – Analysis

Cultivating poppies in Afghanistan for opium. Photo Credit: Tasnim News Agency.


October 25, 2026
 RFE RL
By Frud Bezhan and Daud Khattak

Key Takeaways:

Afghanistan’s opium production has dropped under the Taliban’s 2022 ban, but cultivation has shifted into Pakistan’s Balochistan and Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan, forming a new regional production center.

Satellite imagery found over 9,000 hectares of poppy in Balochistan, with Afghan farmers bringing expertise and capital for expanded, often monoculture plots also reported across parts of Iran.

Experts warn of further rises in 2027 that could increase heroin supply and fund armed groups, while limited rebounds inside Afghanistan suggest Taliban enforcement may be easing under economic strain.

Afghanistan’s opium output, long the world’s largest, has plunged since the Taliban imposed a sweeping ban on illicit narcotics in 2022.

But the militant Islamist group has failed to eradicate cultivation completely, while production appears to have increasingly shifted to neighboring Pakistan and Iran.


Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan and Iran’s southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan, both bordering Afghanistan, have seen a sharp rise in poppy cultivation in recent years, according to satellite imagery and interviews with local farmers.

“The Taliban drugs ban, combined with growing instability in the tri-border area, has created the conditions for widespread poppy cultivation in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province and parts of Iran,” said David Mansfield, a leading UK-based expert on Afghanistan’s illicit drugs industry.

As a result, the remote and volatile borderlands of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran have become “a global center for opium production,” added Mansfield, author of A State Built On Sand: How Opium Undermined Afghanistan.

Experts warn of higher levels of poppy cultivation in the region in 2027, which they say could increase the supply of heroin on the international market, generate revenue for armed groups, and fuel violence.

Pakistan At The ‘Core’

Balochistan Province appears to have become the main hub of opium cultivation in the Afghanistan-Pakistan-Iran border region.

Pakistan’s largest and poorest province, Balochistan has endured a decades-long insurgency by separatist groups and other militants drawn largely from the ethnic Baluch minority. Violence has escalated in recent years as armed groups intensify their campaign against the state.

Islamabad has denied reports of opium cultivation in the country and maintained that any poppy crops discovered have been eradicated. Pakistan’s Interior Ministry and the Balochistan provincial government did not respond to RFE/RL’s requests for comment.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has estimated that opium production in Pakistan remains marginal.

“UNODC has said in the past that there were indications of displacement of poppy to countries around Afghanistan,” the agency said in a statement sent to RFE/RL.

“What we currently observe is that data from countries around Afghanistan is still scarce, as only two countries report on eradication. And while eradication figures do not directly reflect cultivation patterns, the sharp increases in recent years point towards a certain degree of spillover effects.”

But satellite imagery from Alcis, a British firm specializing in satellite analysis, along with interviews with local farmers suggests that opium cultivation is widespread across the province and is expanding.


“Satellite imagery assessments identified more than 9,000 hectares of poppy cultivation in Balochistan alone,” said Mansfield, who authored an August report for Alcis.

Most of the opium cultivation appears to be concentrated in the districts of Loralai and Killa Abdullah in Balochistan.

Abdul Qahar Wadan, a former member of Pakistan’s National Assembly representing Balochistan’s Killa Abdullah district, told RFE/RL that poppy cultivation is rampant in the province, allegedly with the backing of senior military officials and local pro-government power brokers who collect commissions from growers.

Monawar Hussain, the chief administrative officer in Killa Abdullah, rejected the allegation, telling RFE/RL that poppy cultivation had declined following an eradication campaign last year. However, Alcis’s 2026 satellite imagery shows no clear evidence of eradication.

A farmer in Killa Abdullah who spoke to RFE/RL on condition of anonymity said poppy growers pay bribes to local authorities through influential intermediaries, who collect commissions and pass on a share to officials.

The farmer alleged that when media reports trigger pressure from higher authorities, growers and their backers sometimes agree to cultivate poppies on barren land so officials can destroy the crop and publicize the eradication effort.

For years, Lala Jan Kakar resisted the lure of poppy cultivation, but mounting insecurity, drought, and flash floods have devastated traditional fruit farming.

“It’s not possible to resist it anymore. The demand for poppies is much more than fruits, and so is the income,” Kakar, who lives in Killa Abdullah, told RFE/RL.

The surge in production in Pakistan, experts say, has been driven by a growing number of Afghan opium farmers crossing the border to lease land and cultivate poppy.

Since the Taliban banned poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, growers from neighboring Kandahar and Helmand provinces have brought their expertise across the border, striking deals with local farmers.

“The Afghan poppy growers have both money and expertise,” Kakar said, explaining that they invest millions of Pakistani rupees in solar-powered wells and share profits with landowners.

With groundwater scarce and conventional crops less profitable, poppies offer a quicker return and can be harvested twice a year, he said.

“Many farmers have doubled the land they cultivated in 2026 — a stark indication of the scale and pace of this expansion and that we should expect much higher levels of poppy cultivation in 2027,” said Mansfield.

Cultivation Spreading In Iran

A similar pattern has emerged in Iran, where Afghan farmers have crossed the border to cultivate poppies as tenants and sharecroppers, drawing on family ties and local contacts.

Opium cultivation has been reported across a growing number of Iranian provinces in recent years, including Razavi Khorasan in the east, Kermanshah and Lorestan in the west, and Fars in the south.

Sistan-Baluchistan, one of Iran’s largest and poorest provinces, remains the country’s main opium-producing region. Satellite imagery from 2026 appears to show extensive poppy cultivation across parts of the province, with large fields often devoted exclusively to the crop.

Some farms also appear to use drip irrigation for poppy cultivation. Given the substantial upfront cost of installing these systems, their use suggests that farmers who planted in late 2025 expected a low risk of eradication.

“Unlike in Afghanistan, where they cultivated a variety of crops, these farmers are increasingly devoting large plots in Pakistan and Iran entirely to poppy,” said Mansfield. “The shift is not just across borders; it is from mixed farming to large-scale poppy monoculture.”

Iranian authorities, preoccupied with the war against the United States and Israel since late February, have been unable or unwilling to destroy the 2026 poppy crop, reinforcing growers’ confidence.

Sistan-Baluchistan has also been the site of an intensifying insurgency by separatists and militants who have exploited the longstanding grievances of the Baluch minority, which has faced disproportionate discrimination and violence at the hands of the authorities.

As the Iran war continues, the economy teeters on the brink of collapse, and the state’s attention remains focused elsewhere, poppy cultivation in Iran is expected to increase further in 2027, according to experts.

Experts say rising drug production in the border region of Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan both reflects and fuels violence.

“Armed groups compete for tax revenues from the drugs trade and other cross-border activities, including people smuggling and trade in fuel, minerals and other goods,” said Mansfield.
Resurgence In Afghanistan

Opium cultivation also appears to be rebounding in Afghanistan despite the Taliban’s ban, underscoring the country’s continued importance in the global opium trade.


Production is concentrated in the northeastern province of Badakhshan, which is estimated to account for around a half of the country’s opium output, and several southwestern provinces.

Driven by drought, mounting debt, and economic hardship, farmers in Badakhshan and Helmand have protested and defied the ban even in the face of the Taliban’s forceful enforcement.

“In 2026, poppy cultivation remained widespread across Badakhshan’s rainfed and irrigated land,” said Mansfield. “In the southwest, cultivation almost doubled between 2025 and 2026, though it remained limited, concentrated in remote areas, and concealed within wheat fields and behind household compound walls.”

Hostile reactions to crop eradication suggest the Taliban is wary of provoking further unrest as Afghanistan’s economic crisis deepens.

A Taliban directive barring the authorities from searching homes for poppy or opium without a court order appears to be a significant concession.

“But there is a clear risk: Growing numbers of farmers in the southwest may read the concession as a signal that the authorities will tolerate cultivation beyond walled compounds,” said Mansfield. “If so, Afghanistan could see a dramatic rise in opium production in 2027.”

Frud Bezhan is Senior Regional Editor in the English-language Central Newsroom at RFE/RL, leading coverage of the Middle East, South Asia, and Central Asia. Previously, he was the Regional Desk Editor for the Near East, with a primary focus on Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. As a correspondent, he reported from Afghanistan, Turkey, Kosovo, and Western Europe.

Daud Khattak is a senior international correspondent covering the Near East in RFE/RL’s Central Newsroom. He was previously the managing editor of RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal.


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Cheap weapons, growing fears: Inside the Taliban’s drone campaign against Pakistan

Pakistan says it intercepted 23 suicide drones launched from Afghanistan into Pakistani airspace in September alone. Since the conflict began in February 2026, the Taliban have increasingly used drones to attack Pakistan, raising concerns in Islamabad.


Issued on: 14/10/2026 - 
By: Ershad ALIJANI / The FRANCE 24 Observers

Images of several drones that Pakistani forces said had been launched from Afghanistan and shot down in different parts of Pakistan, including the suburbs of the capital, Islamabad, on February 27, 2026. © Observers

The Pakistani army on September 23 said it had shot down at least eight fixed-wing drones in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, less than 1,000 metres from the Afghan border. It was the latest reported attempt by the Taliban to target Pakistani forces using this type of drone.

One of the drones that Pakistani forces said had been launched from Afghanistan was shot down on September 23 near the Torkham border crossing.

Since the conflict between Pakistan and the Taliban began in February of this year, the Taliban have deployed armed first-person-view (FPV) drones – small quadcopters carrying munitions such as mortar shells – to attack Pakistani positions near the border. They have also used larger, fixed-wing suicide drones equipped with more powerful engines, potentially capable of flying hundreds of kilometres.

Propaganda footage published by the Taliban showing FPV drone attacks on Pakistani positions near the Afghan border in October 2025.

On September 28, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said it had delivered a diplomatic protest note to the Taliban over what it described as "provocative incursions", citing 23 drones launched from Afghanistan into Pakistani airspace since the beginning of the month.

On March 13, 2026, Pakistan claimed to have shot down two Taliban drones near the capital, Islamabad.

From friends to foes

Once close allies, Pakistan and the Taliban entered into open conflict about eight months ago when Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif publicly declared that “relations with the Taliban had deteriorated into an ‘open war’.”

The conflict escalated after Pakistan began targeting positions of the Pakistani militant group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) inside Afghanistan. Also known as the Pakistani Taliban, the TTP is officially recognised as a terrorist organisation by multiple countries and international bodies, including the United Nations, Pakistan and the European Union.

The TTP has carried out attacks in Pakistan for nearly two decades and has long-standing ties with the Afghan Taliban, which Pakistan accuses of sheltering and supporting the group.

When Pakistan, which has aerial military superiority over Afghanistan, has struck suspected TTP positions deep inside Afghanistan, the Taliban has retaliated with ground attacks and drones.

On February 27, 2026, Afghanistan’s Taliban government claimed to have carried out drone attacks on the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. The same day, Pakistani sources published images of what they said were Taliban drones shot down in a suburb of the capital.

'Making a fixed wing drone is not that complicated anymore'

UAV expert Mark Grozel explains:

These drones are roughly two metres in size and could carry between half a kilogram and one kilogram of explosives. They have a very limited military effectiveness and are easy to intercept. They are slow and fly at low altitude. The difficulty is detecting them: they are hard to spot, but once detected, they are easy to shoot down.

There are multiple scenarios. One is that a foreign government supplies them. Or they could be, to some extent, homemade. Today, making a fixed-wing drone is not that complicated anymore.

Autopilot software that controls a drone’s trajectory is widely available.

On [the e-commerce site] Alibaba, you can easily buy components such as the engine and battery. The body could be made with a 3D printer, or from polystyrene or even balsa wood…

After examining photos and videos of drones that Pakistan’s army said it had intercepted, FRANCE 24 identified what appear to be DLE55 engines fitted to each of the suicide drones shown. These 55cc single piston engines and are commercially available online.

The DLE55 engine is available for purchase on the Chinese e-commerce platform Alibaba. © Observers

Despite their basic engines, small explosive payloads and simple radio navigation systems, these drones have a heavy psychological impact.

'Their main power is their psychological impact'

According to Grozel:
The strength of this kind of fixed-wing drones is that they are cheap to make. Any group with the resources, including the Taliban, can now produce them.

They allow you to tell your adversary: ‘I can threaten your infrastructure at any moment.’ If one hits a school or a fuel facility, the consequences could be catastrophic. Their main power is their psychological impact.

The Taliban’s drone attacks come amid a broader conflict between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban, fueled by the activities of the TTP.

Direct engagements between the TTP and Pakistani security forces have increased significantly since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, rising from 98 incidents in 2021 to 470 in 2024. Throughout 2025, regular clashes along the border reportedly resulted in approximately 4,000 deaths.

On September 18, 2026 a TTP suicide car bomb attack on a mosque killed 21 people in the Pakistani border city Kohat .

The roots of the Taliban–TTP alliance

Mukhtar Wafaei, an expert on the Taliban who specialises in Afghan affairs, explains how relations between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban deteriorated into military conflict.

To understand the current situation, we have to go back to the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s.

During those years, Afghan and Pakistani fighters were sent from religious schools in Pakistan to participate in the “jihad” against Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

These relationships were forged during that period and remained largely unquestioned until the September 11 attacks and the subsequent US invasion of Afghanistan.

After the collapse of the Taliban’s first government in 2001, Taliban leaders and members dispersed, with many seeking refuge in Pakistan’s border regions, including Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Waziristan and Balochistan.

The debris of a house destroyed by a Pakistani air strike in Afghanistan on September 21, 2026. According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), at least three civilians were killed in the attacks that day.

They maintained these long-standing cross-border relationships. In 2008, the Afghan Taliban expanded their presence across various parts of Afghanistan. Around the same time, several jihadist organisations operating in Pakistan, originating from the same tribal regions and carrying out violent attacks, came together under the TTP.

Another turning point came in 2021, when the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan. Taliban leaders who had been sheltered in safe houses in Pakistan belonging to the TTP, left for Afghanistan. Their Pakistani friends, allies and associates accompanied them to Kabul and also took refuge there.

Between late 2021 and mid-2022, Pakistan attempted to negotiate with the TTP. But after the group refused to disarm or accept Pakistan’s constitutional framework, it ordered its fighters to launch nationwide attacks on November 28, 2022. The Taliban claim the TTP is a Pakistani internal issue and deny any responsibility.

When diplomatic ultimatums failed to halt cross-border militant operations, Pakistan resorted to air strikes inside Afghanistan, prompting the Afghan Taliban to retaliate with attacks on Pakistani territory.

Made with Flourish • Create a scatter plot

Number of Afghan civilians killed in Pakistani air strikes between October 2025 and October 2026. Sources: United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and Amnesty International.

Pakistan also launched a mass expulsion campaign, with 2.39 million Afghans returning from Pakistan to Afghanistan over a period of more than two years.

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The number of terrorist attacks in Pakistan (blue) and the number of civilians killed in these attacks (red) between 2008 and 2025. The TTP was responsible for most of the attacks during this period. Source: westpoint.edu

There is a very deep ideological relationship between the Afghan Taliban and the TTP rooted in the extremist Islamist religious schools in Pakistan. They share the same ideology, come from the same religious tradition and follow the same teachings. They can no longer be separated. They are effectively one group.

A few months after the Afghan Taliban returned to power, the TTP leader stated very clearly in Pashto that Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, meaning the Afghan Taliban, were one group. He said: “We are not two groups. We are one group, following one programme, one ideology and one method.”

This is particularly revealing because the TTP leader himself explicitly described the two movements as one.