The damage in Helmand has caused the drug gangs to try and expand their operations to provinces in the north, closer to the "Russian Route" that moves heroin through Central Asia, Russia and to Europe and North America. Russia is also an increasingly important source of the chemicals needed to refine opium into heroin. These conditions are the cause of all the sudden Taliban activity in the north. The call for more U.S. and NATO troops is to counter the drug gangs attempt to find a place to set up show elsewhere in Afghanistan. Without the drug money, the drug gang gunmen disappear, as do most of the Taliban fighters. Suddenly, Afghanistan becomes a much less violent place.
| Wait, what? We're starting to win? How can that be? |
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