Inside the Taliban's war on drugs

Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders have been more successful in cracking down on opium than anyone ever has, a BBC investigation has found.

The BBC has travelled to major poppy growing areas and had exclusive access to remote provinces where our journalists have seen that farmers have either not grown opium poppy complying with the Taliban’s ban, or they’ve had their poppy crops destroyed if they defied the order.

This is backed by research from UK based experts who have analysed satellite images and said the drop in opium cultivation is likely to be as much as 80%.

The crackdown has big global ramifications, with most of the world’s opium coming from Afghanistan.