Nawa-I-Barakzayi District

Nawa-I-Barakzayi District
District
The district in the map of Helmand Province
Country	Afghanistan
Region	Helmand Province
Capital	Nāwa-I-Barakzāyi
Area
• Total	2,505 km2 (967 sq mi)
Population  (2008)
• Total	89,814
• Density	36/km2 (93/sq mi)
	[1]

Nāwa-I-Barakzāyi District (Pashto: ناوۀ بارکزائی /Persian: ناوۀ بارکزائی) or Trek Nawa is an administrative district in Helmand Province, Afghanistan located south of the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah along the Helmand River. It is bordered by the districts of Lashkar Gah, Nad Ali, Garmsir, and Rig, as well as the provinces of Nimruz and Kandahar. It falls within the area known as Pashtunistan, (land of the Pashtuns), an area comprising most of southeast Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan. The dominant language is Pashto and many of the 89,000 residents practice the traditional code of Pashtunwali. Nawa-I-Barakzayi's name reflects the dominant Pashtun tribe in the district, the Barakzai. Prior to the 1970s, it was called Shamalan after a small village at the south end of the district

It is one of the top opium-producing districts in Afghanistan with 6% of Afghanistan's total crop being grown there. This has made the Nawa-i-Barakzayi district a central hub in the opium and heroin trade. The district has also been the scene of heavy fighting during the Helmand province campaign. It was a Taliban stronghold until the summer of 2009, when United States Marines were deployed there as part of Operation Strike of the Sword. In January 2010 ISAF chief Stanley McChrystal and the country's prime minister Hamid Karzai visited the district to assess the ISAF's work in combating the insurgents.^[2] Nawa previously fell to the Taliban in early August 2016, but Afghan forces reentered the district center in mid-August, making the district contested. In October 2016, Taliban has seized control of the district and killed the Ahmadshah Salem, the district's chief of police.^[3]