Word: opium
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...Uruzgan is a longtime Taliban stronghold. "[Taliban leader] Mullah Omar grew up here," says former Dutch battlegroup commander Jelte Groen. "It was the first province to fall to the Taliban in 1994." With its rugged terrain, long history of opium growing, and network of smugglers' trails, Uruzgan "provides a safe haven for drug transport and moving troops," Groen adds. "So it is a very crucial area...
...Gizab, about 100 km northeast of Tarin Kowt, the Taliban have established Sharia law and made the town a way-station for opium smugglers. ISAF patrols have not ventured into the town for a couple of years. The number of Taliban fighters in Uruzgan is unknown - estimates range from 300 to 3,000 - but there is no doubting the effectiveness of their terror tactics. In November, on the vital highway between Tarin Kowt and Kandahar, capital of the adjacent province, five Afghan police manning Australian-built checkpoints were killed and their corpses strung up as a warning against collaboration with...
...built a causeway over the Garmab Mandah River, and at Tarin Kowt rebuilt the provincial hospital, redeveloped a health center and refurbished schools. A trade school at Camp Holland teaches local youths carpentry and plumbing, though many prefer the easy money to be made by growing poppies and smuggling opium. A $5-million police training center is also planned. Australian Captain Mick Koen, a project engineer, says the troops are confident the job they do is worthwhile, and "the people in Tarin Kowt are pleased at the results...
...Cigars of the Pharaoh, our cowlicked protagonist owes his life to a passing sea captain, who rescues him and his faithful fox terrier Snowy from the Red Sea, into which they have been thrown overboard. That captain was based on the real-life French adventurer, hashish smuggler and sometime opium grower Henry de Monfreid - and the recent reissue of De Monfreid's beguiling 1933 memoir Hashish: A Smuggler's Tale is a cause for rejoicing among all those who love briny confessionals and barroom brags. De Monfreid was a man who condemned shoes as "cursed things," and his arch...
...because of its value to both sides. For the Taliban, there's major symbolic value in being able to hold a town in a country ostensibly under the control of more than 40,000 NATO troops and their Afghan allies. Musa Qala is also at the center of the opium industry, whose revenues fuel the Taliban insurgency, and its location near the mountains north of Helmand make it a useful command center for an insurgent army. For all the same reasons, it's important to NATO to dislodge the Taliban. That, and the fact that it's a do-over...