American designs, with broad tree-lined streets and brick houses with no walls separating them from the street. In the wake of the Soviet invasion and the long Afghan civil war, the trees mostly came down and walls went up. The massive Helmand irrigation project in the 1940s–1970s created one of the most extensive farming zones in southern Afghanistan, opening up many thousands of hectares of desert to human cultivation and habitation. The project focused on three large canals: the Boghra, Shamalan, and Darweshan. Responsibility for maintaining the canals was given to the Helmand and Arghandab Valley Authority (HAVA), a semi-independent government agency whose authority (in its heyday) rivaled that of the provincial governors. After the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989 and the collapse of Mohammad Najibullah's government in 1992, the city was taken over by the Mujaheddin forces. In the mid-1990s it fell to the Taliban government. In late 2001, the Taliban were removed from power by the United States armed forces. Since 2002, the city and region was occupied by United States Marine Corps and the International Security Assistance Force. In 2008, Taliban forces attacked the city heavily but the Afghan National Army and the Oregon Army National Guard managed to hold them back, as shown in the documentary, "Shepherds of Helmand." After training and equipping Afghan security forces, the foreign armies transferred security responsibility to the military of Afghanistan and Afghan National Police in 2011. The city has witnessed some fighting in the form of attacks orchestrated by the Taliban insurgents. In October 2020, the Taliban attacked the city along with the nearby district of Nad Ali. Militants raised the flag of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan at the city's eastern entrance but withdrew following a few days once the United States agreed to halt its airstrikes on the Taliban near Lashkargah. The city fell under Taliban control on 13 August 2021, after the Battle of Lashkargah. Climate Lashkargah has a hot desert climate (Köppen BWh), characterised by little precipitation and high variation between summer and winter temperatures. The average temperature in Lashkargah is 20.1 °C, while the annual precipitation averages 97 mm. Summers start in mid-May, last until late-September, and are extremely dry. July is the hottest month of the year with an average temperature of 32.8 °C. The coldest month January has an average temperature of 7.6 °C. Helmand River The Helmand River