How the US military's opium war in Afghanistan was lost

The US has spent $1.5m (£1.15m) a day since 2001 fighting the opium war in Afghanistan. So why is business still booming?

It's November 2017. The night vision camera shows a network of streets in a town in Helmand province, the poppy-growing centre of Afghanistan.

The camera wheels around the targets before the missiles come arcing in.

There are nine strikes in total, each one taking out an individual building in a series of almost simultaneous explosions.

This is a jaw-dropping example of precision bombing, using some of the most advanced military technology ever devised, including a B-52 strategic bomber, an F-22 Raptor stealth fighter and an M142 tactical rocket launcher.

The video of this attack, in which eight Afghan civilians were killed, was one of a series published online by the American military - vivid evidence of the progress of a year-long bombing campaign code-named "Iron Tempest".

The objective was to take out the heroin laboratories at the heart of the Taliban's $200m-a-year opium trade, and it was to involve some 200 similar strikes. - Read More

How the US military's opium war in Afghanistan was lost - BBC News