Afghanistan’s Helmand Holds Rare Earths, Official Says

Afghanistan’s Helmand province, where the U.S. military is fighting the Taliban, has deposits of rare-earth elements including lanthanum and cerium, said Atiq Sediqi, an adviser to Afghanistan’s Ministry of Mines.

The deposits in Helmand “are similar to Mountain Pass,” Sediqi said today in an interview in Washington, referring to the California rare-earth mine that Molycorp Inc. plans to restart by 2012 with U.S. government financial assistance. “The rare-earth content reaches up to 6 percent” in the Afghan deposits, Sediqi said.