Clashes break out in Afghanistan over poppy crop clearing

FAIZABAD, Afghanistan: Clashes broke out on Monday between Taliban forces tasked with clearing poppy crops and farmers in Afghanistan´s northeastern Badakhshan province, residents told AFP.

Poppy cultivators threw rocks and demanded Taliban security units not destroy their crops, said Jamaluddin, a resident of Barlas Shalmar village in the Argo district of Badakhshan whose name has been changed for security reasons.

In response, Taliban authorities fired their guns to disperse villagers, Jamaluddin, who witnessed the incident, said.

A nurse at a medical facility in Argo, also speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP the clinic received “two dead and nine wounded people” from the Barlas area -- a string of three neighbouring villages. A statement from the Taliban´s army unit in Badakhshan said there had been protests to prevent poppy clearing in Argo, but did not note any deaths or injuries as a result. “Several agitators who provoked the people have been arrested and the process of destroying (poppy) fields in the district is ongoing,” said military official Mahboobullah Hamed, who was quoted in the same statement and was in the area of the protests.