Afghanistan way in the future, how can the peopole of afghanistan defeet the demon of drug agriculture? In the new political landscape of Afghanistan, US and Australian forces, aligned against the Taliban and their terrorist allies, find themselves in an uneasy relationship with the drug lords who control much of the world's opium cultivation and heroin production. Afghanistan and its near neighbours still supply around 80 percent of the heroin sold in Western Europe.

After a brief lull in production in the last year of the Taliban, the current opium crop is one of the largest ever and business is booming. How are the world's drug control authorities responding to this fact of life in Central Asia? Can the reconstruction effort in Afghanistan take the place of the opium trade currently the mainstay of the economy? How will the United States resolve a dilemma that pits the war on terror against the war on drugs?

Narrated by Colin Friels and produced by Chris Hilton, Afghanistan: Drugs, Guns and Money asks these difficult questions by following the journey of this years opium crops, tracing the drug trafficking routes heading north from Afghanistan through the nations of the Old Silk Road on its way to Europe. The film examines who are the winners and losers as the crop finds its way to market. The awesome beauty of the landscape provides a powerful backdrop for the treachery uncovered each step of the way. Like a cancer, the heroin trade has spread its tentacles through almost every level of society. In Afghanistan there is mass local addiction, local HIV epidemics, an unending cycle of violence and crime, and the corruption of state institutions.

The documentary begins late April 2002 in the blooming poppy fields of Badakstan in northern Afghanistan then follows the shipment of the harvest to the hidden heroin laboratories, across the Pianj river, by foot through treacherous mountain passes in Tajikistan and then by road, rail and air through the Silk Road nations of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and then its journey to the most profitable market in Europe.

On route we meet the impoverished farmers (Sayed Ahmad), the compromised border guards (Colonel Vladimir Makushin and the Russian border guard), drug agents (General Rustan Nazarov), traffickers (Boris Petrovicjh and Zharina), corrupt customs officers (name withheld), and the regions top UN drug control official (Antonella Deledda). The story also includes comments from Robert Baer, ex-CIA agent from Tajikistan who is critical of US policy in the area.

The documentary returns to Afghanistan to see what can be done about reducing the production of opium and heroin at source. During the Talibans reign, the regime taxed poppy production to fund their activities, later banning it in an attempt to gain good PR points from the West while profiting from the huge stockpiles. But there are no good guys in this story. In those parts of the country controlled by the Northern Alliance, heroin labs continue unhindered and production thrives. They still do. Americas response to this point has been to waive narcotics sanctions against Afghanistan now it has a friendly leader in place in Kabul. But its a thorn in the side of the new Afghan government of Hamid Karzai, enriching the regional warlords and inhibiting the project of rebuilding the nation. Karzais new vice president Abdul Qadir who is interviewed in the film was assassinated in Kabul in broad daylight in July this year. Many suspect his death was drug related.

A classic documentary set in a stunning landscape, Afghanistan: Drugs, Guns and Money is an unblinking look at a story of treachery, corruption and the most unholy of alliancesthe outcome of which may have dire consequences for all of us.

Just 6 years after U.S.-led forces drove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan for providing sanctuary to Al Qaeda terrorists, theseIslamist militants have resurfaced with a vengeance. Roadside bombings, direct fire and suicide attacks have intensified, with no end to the bloodshed in sight. Now, Inside the Taliban, a comprehensive 2-hour special, takes viewers into the radical and terrifying world of the Taliban - from its vigilante beginnings to its emergence as a violent power.

The Taliban is an Islamic fundamentalist movement in Afghanistan that controlled most of the country from September 1996 to November 2001. The Taliban movement was created in 1994 by a senior mullah (Islamic priest), Mohammed Omar, in the southern Afghanistan city of Kandahār. The name Taliban, meaning “student,” refers to the movement’s origins in Islamic religious schools, or madrasas, although most members knew war all their lives and attended the madrasas only for rudimentary religious training.

The Taliban movement emerged out of the chaos and uncertainty of the Afghan-Soviet War (1979-1989) and subsequent civil war in Afghanistan. During the 1980s Afghanistan was occupied by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and ruled by a Soviet-backed government. Afghanistan’s long war with the USSR was largely fought by mujahideen (Islamic guerrilla) factions with assistance from the United States; Pakistan also provided places of refuge, military training, and other support. After the Soviets completed their withdrawal in 1989, civil war broke out between the mujahideen factions and the central government. Afghanistan’s central government had long been dominated by the country’s majority ethnic group, the Pashtuns, but after the Soviet withdrawal a coalition government that included Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras, and other minority groups came to power. The Taliban emerged as a faction of mujahideen soldiers who identified themselves as religious students. The Taliban consisted mostly of Pashtuns intent on once again dominating the central government in Kābul. They were trained and armed by the Frontier Constabulary, a quasi-military unit in Pakistan, which also has a significant Pashtun population. The Taliban actively recruited thousands of young men in the Afghan refugee camps and the madrasas in Pakistan. Many war orphans also joined the movement. The Taliban promoted itself as a new force for peace and unity, and many war-weary Afghan people, particularly Pashtuns, supported the Taliban in hopes of respite from years of war.

In late 1994 and early 1995 the Taliban moved through the south and west of Afghanistan, taking control of Kandahār and many other towns and cities dominated by fellow Pashtuns. Herāt and most of the other towns along the main southern and western highway soon followed. In February 1995 the Taliban reached the outskirts of Kābul but was ousted by government forces in March. Again it advanced to the capital in October. While continuing to assault Kābul with rockets and bombs, Taliban soldiers advanced and took control of eastern Afghanistan, as well as the country’s central area. The Taliban continued its siege of Kābul off and on throughout 1996 until it was able to advance and capture the city in September. Government troops and officials, including President Burhanuddin Rabbani and Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, fled to the northern part of the country. Shortly after the capital fell to the Taliban, the country’s last Soviet-backed president, Mohammad Najibullah, and his brother, security chief Shahpur Ahmadzai, were seized and publicly hanged.

After taking over Kābul, Taliban leaders began to institute an uncompromising regime. Their basic premise was to enforce a purist way of life based on their fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. They immediately created the Ministry for Ordering What Is Right and Forbidding What Is Wrong to impose and enforce their rules of conduct. Mohammed Omar led the Taliban as Amir-ul-Momineen (Commander of the Faithful). He was the supreme leader in a strictly hierarchical system of rule. He was advised on various matters by members of special shuras (councils) composed of high-ranking Taliban leaders. Ultimately Omar was the only individual who could issue an official edict. Many of the Taliban edicts had little to do with pure Islam or the teachings of the Qur'an and were actually based in ancient tribal rules and customs. Most of the rules reflected a disenchantment with modern life. The Taliban continually issued new rules and used Radio Kābul and trucks equipped with loudspeakers to announce them. The rules of conduct eventually covered almost every aspect of social behavior by the population, even forbidding things such as clapping, kite flying, and squeaky shoes.

The Taliban banned music and dancing, shut down movie theaters and television stations, destroyed public works of art that depicted living beings, and forbade the consumption of alcoholic beverages. Men were ordered to grow full, untrimmed beards (in accordance with orthodox Islam) and were rounded up and beaten with sticks in an effort to force prayer in the mosques. The Taliban strongly enforced the ancient custom of purdah, the veiling and seclusion of women from men. Women were ordered to cover themselves from head to toe in burkas (long, tentlike veils). Girls’ schools were closed, and women were forbidden to work outside their homes. As a result, hospitals lost almost all their staffs and children in orphanages were abandoned. In a country where hundreds of thousands of men had been killed in warfare, widows found themselves unable to work to provide basic necessities for their families.

The Taliban religious police enforced the new rules and punished anyone found disobeying. They inflicted many of the punishments on the spot, usually ruthlessly, without offering the offender any sort of judicial hearing. The Taliban allowed public beatings and stonings, sometimes fatal, of women who violated the dress code or were escorted by men not related to them. Any person found not praying at the required times was imprisoned. The Taliban leaders also mandated specific punishments for other types of crimes. They made murder, adultery, and drug dealing punishable by death, and theft punishable by amputation of the hand. Many of the Taliban laws and punishments alarmed human-rights groups and provoked worldwide condemnation.

The Taliban takeover of Kābul in 1996 paved the way for additional territorial conquests, and Taliban soldiers advanced north toward the mountain strongholds of the Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras. By the late 1990s the Taliban had taken control of almost all of Afghanistan. Opposition forces, commonly known as the Northern Alliance, held a small portion of the country’s territory in the north. Most countries did not recognize the Taliban regime as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.