Afghanistan’s Taliban have stepped up a major campaign against the cultivation of opium poppies despite widespread protests. In the north-eastern province of Badakhshan, 1,000 hectares of cultivated land have been destroyed since the beginning of the operation, the Islamists’ Ministry of Defence reported on X on Thursday. The operation will continue until the poppy-growing land is completely destroyed, it added. According to a UN report from November, the cultivation of opium has decreased by 95% since the Taliban issued a ban in 2022. In a country plagued by war and poverty, the cultivation o…