Poppy, Gold and Guns

Nov 7, 2026 | Gul-i-Ayesha Bhatti
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For years, Badakhshan has been seen as Afghanistan’s remote periphery, a mountain province too distant from Kabul to matter. That distance has proved costly. Kabul’s grip on its valleys has always been loose, and into that space have flowed two lucrative economies: opium and gold. On October 29, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime reported that roughly three-quarters of Afghanistan’s opium now grows in the north-east, with Badakhshan at its heart. Yet in Badakhshan, the line between those who police these economies and those who profit from them has grown thin. Juma Khan Fateh, whom Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada himself placed in charge of the province’s poppy cultivation in December 2024, was moved out in March after Dushanbe complained about his role in smuggling heroin into Tajikistan; by August, his men were fighting Taliban forces over the gold mines of Nusay, sending gunfire across the Panj. The periphery has become the frontline of a problem that no longer belongs to Africa alone.