Insider Attacks, Opium and Drought: Afghanistan Gets Even Worse

Afghanistan’s dire situation 17 years after U.S. intervention is getting even worse, with government control of territory continuing to slide, narcotics output rising and a worsening drought displacing more people than the armed conflict, according to a Pentagon watchdog.

President Ashraf Ghani’s government controlled or influenced about 55.5 percent of Afghan districts as of July, the least since November 2015, the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction said late Wednesday in its latest quarterly report. And after $8.9 billion in U.S. counternarcotics appropriations, poppy production surged in 2017 and is now four times higher than in 2002, the year after American forces arrived.