Before the Taliban seized power in August 2021, the illicit trade in opium, a gum produced from poppies, helped pay for their insurgency. The mullahs encouraged farmers to plant poppies and taxed the trade. But drugs are deemed haram (prohibited) under Islamic law. Shortly after taking power the Taliban’s supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, banned narcotics. Early this month, the Taliban turned up at Akhtar Mohammad’s farm in Helmand province, in southern Afghanistan, wielding sticks. In half an hour they destroyed a field of poppies that had taken the farmer a year to cultivate, Is Taliban terrorizing its people whenever it feel like ?