After returning to power in Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban began building an irrigation canal to convert 550,000 hectares of desert in northern Afghanistan into farmland.  The Taliban has reportedly made a controversial Qosh Tepa Canal a priority project. 

Construction of the canal is believed to have begun in March last year.  According to some sources, the second of three stages of the project is expected to begin in the coming months, with more than 100 kilometers already dug.

Some Central Asia’s nations (Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan) have expressed concern that a giant canal project in Afghanistan will have an adverse effect on their agrarian sectors. 

The Tepa Canal is to be filled with water drawn from the transboundary Amu Darya River.  Experts believe that with a length of 285 kilometers and a width of some 100 meters, the canal will divert a significant portion of the Amy Darya’s flow while irrigating 550,000 hectares of land.  According to some source,  it will draw some 10 billion cubic meters of water from the Amu Darya River every year.

By diverting water from the Amu Darya River, the canal is also expected to make the Aral Sea disaster worse.

The plan to irrigate land in northern Afghanistan is not new.  Afghanistan’s first president, Mohammad Daud Khan, reportedly had a similar vision in the 1970s.