A Sept. 2 report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime boasts that 800,000 Afghan farmers have stopped cultivating poppies—but warns that drug lords are forging stronger ties with both insurgent groups and corrupt officials. The UNODC report, "Afghan Opium Survey 2009," documents a decline in opium cultivation in Afghanistan for the second consecutive year, dropping by as much 22% since 2008. Prices for opiates are also at a 10-year low. But, signaling improved efficiency, heroin production was down only 10%.

Like their counterparts in Pakistan, Afghanistan's Taliban demonstrate once again that they aren't above blowing up their cannon fodder at mosques—during Ramadan—to enforce their supposedly purist version of Islam. Now didn't we hear somewhere, "Do not fight them at the Holy Mosque"? We've got a word of advice for these jokers: read the Koran. From the LA Times, Sept 3:

Supposedly temporary restrictions on freedom of expression in the run-up to Afghanistan's presidential vote are drawing protests from the country's press. Media outlets are standing firm against a government call not to broadcast reports of violence on election day, charging that it violates their constitutional rights. Fahim Dashti, the editor of the English-language Kabul Weekly newspaper, told Associated Press that the demand was "a violation of media law" and a constitution that officially protects freedom of speech. Kabul fears that voters will be scared away from polling booths by the reports.

A bomb blast killed at least seven—including women and children—Aug. 17 in the Pakistani town of Charsadda, NWFP. The bomb was hidden in a box of medicine given to the driver of the vehicle to deliver in a nearby village. It was a time device that went off when the driver stopped at a fuel station. Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for the blast, saying the victims belonged to a tribe that had raised an anti-Taliban militia.

US Marines and Afghan forces uncovered and destroyed hundreds of tons of poppy seeds, opium and heroin in southern Afghanistan this month in raids that officials say are part of a shift in counter-narcotics strategy. Marines in Helmand working alongside DEA-trained Afghan police seized 297 tons of poppy seeds, 77 pounds (35 kilograms) of heroin and 300 pounds (135 kilograms) of opium in raids in mid-July. Some 1,200 pounds (550 kilograms) of hashish and 4,225 gallons (16,000 liters) of chemicals used to convert opium to heroin were also seized. Said US envoy Richard Holbrooke: "This wasn't an accident. This was planned interdiction."

At least nine were killed—including seven children—and more than 70 wounded July 13 in a bomb blast at at the home of a cleric Hafiz Riaz in central Pakistan, where children had gathered for religious education. Several houses were destroyed in the blast, on the outskirts of Mian Channu, 250 kilometers east of Lahore in Punjab province. It is not known if the blast was a terror attack, or if explosives the cleric himself had stored at the house accidentally detonated. (The Hindu, AKI, July 13)

President Barack Obama says he is collecting facts about the killing of up to 2,000 Taliban prisoners in November 2001, reportedly by fighters of a US-backed warlord in northern Afghanistan, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum. But rights observers say they believe US forces could have been directly involved in the mass slaying.

At least 25 were killed in Afghanistan's Logar (Lowgar) province after a truck loaded with explosives hidden under firewood skidded off the road and crashed. The payload exploded when police and crowd of civilians gathered around the vehicle to investigate. Of the dead, only four were police; 16 were schoolchildren aged 8 to 12, who had been on their way class. Authorities believe the explosives were detonated remotely. No-one has claimed responsibility. (NYT, LAT, July 9)