Kabul -
A US report shows that opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan grew to an all-time high in 2013 despite America spending more than $7 billion to fight it over the past decade.
Federal auditors SIGAR report that Afghan farmers grew an unprecedented 209 000 hectares of the poppy in 2013, blowing past the previous peak of 193 000 hectares in 2007.
As of June 30, 2014, they say, the United States had spent approximately $7.6 billion on counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan.
It said one factor for the surge was affordable deep-well technology, which turned 200 000 hectares of desert in southwestern Afghanistan into arable land over the past decade.
Poppy cultivation happens mostly in the south and southwestern parts of Afghanistan where insurgents are highly active and the government has little influence. - Sapa-AP