Afghan Farmers Ignoring Crop Ban

CHINAR, Afghanistan - When the Taliban ordered Afghanistan's fields cleared of opium poppies seven years ago because of Islam's ban on drugs, fearful farmers complied en masse.

Today, officials say the religious militia nets tens of millions of dollars by forcing farmers to plant poppies and taxing the harvest, driving the country's skyrocketing opium production to fund the fight against what they consider an even greater evil: U.S. and NATO troops.

"Drugs are bad. The Koran is very clear about it," said Gafus Scheltem, NATO's political adviser in southern Afghanistan. But to fight the enemy, he said, "all things are allowed. They need money, and the only way they can get money is from Arabs that support them in the gulf, or poppies."

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"We Are Now in a Race Against Time."

When retired Army Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey visited Afghanistan in February for meetings with 23 senior Western and local military, intelligence and political officials, he came away with a cautiously optimistic view of the prospects for reform and political stability there.

McCaffrey, a respected division commander in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and commander of U.S. military operations in Central America and South America, now teaches at West Point. A copy of his trip report, written for his colleagues there but widely circulated in Washington and obtained from one of the recipients, included the following blunt observations:

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'IF THEY SPRAY OUR CROPS THERE WILL BE A BIG REBELLION, YOU'LL SEE'

Agha Nour has had some of his poppy crop eradicated. His neighbour's has remained virtually untouched. Others in the area have lost the lot.

The harvest left untouched belongs to his cousin, Haji Abdul Munaf, who just happens to be the Mayor of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand, the province that produces around 30 per cent of Afghanistan's poppy.

Mr Nour, 77, claims he does not know what influence his cousin had on the eradication. "I think they will come back and finish off what is left. We are poor people, and this is our livelihood. How will we feed our families?"

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The 'IoS' can reveal Tony Blair is considering calls to legalise poppy production in the Taliban's backyard. The plan could cut medical shortages of opiates worldwide, curb smuggling - and hit the insurgents.

The buds of millions of poppy flowers are swelling across Afghanistan. In the far southern provinces bordering Iran, the harvest will start later this month. By mid- May the fields around British military camps in Helmand will be ringing to the sound of scythes, rather than gunfire.

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LAHORE: As international efforts to eradicate Afghanistan's opium production have proven fruitless and the problem keeps getting worse, some European governments are weighing legalisation of the drug trade, a German magazine, Spiegel Online, reported on Tuesday.

"Governments in Berlin, Paris and Rome, along with NATO leadership are discussing a potentially explosive new idea: the legalisation of Afghanistan's opium production. The plan envisages farmers being able to sell their poppies to officially licensed buyers for the same price they currently get from the drug barons. The product could then be sold to the pharmaceutical industry for pain medication and other products," says the report.

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On March 21, in a speech to mark the fourth anniversary of Australian troops being dispatched to Iraq as part of an illegal US invasion responsible for the deaths of more than half a million Iraqis, Prime Minister John Howard conceded that despite the "surge" in the occupiers' troop numbers "success is by no means assured".

He also said, "I am well aware of the sharp political differences that exist in Australia today over Iraq, differences that have existed since the government's initial decision to commit forces four years ago", a reference to the fact that a majority of Australians have always opposed his criminal war.

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A survey from a European-based think-tank says Canada and other Western countries are losing the battle for hearts and minds in Afghanistan while the Taliban are seizing the advantage.

According to the Senlis Council, nearly half of the men in Afghanistan's southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, where Canadian troops are based, believe the international community will lose the war against the Taliban.

"The military forces are doing a remarkable job in extremely difficult circumstances," said Senlis's Canadian founder, Norine MacDonald. "But woefully inadequate aid and development, and misguided counter-narcotics policies are turning people against them and making their work much more dangerous."

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Poppy Production Increased By 25% Last Year

British Switch Focus From Farmers To Traffickers

A haul of drugs - mostly heroin - confiscated in Afghanistan by the Kabul-based Criminal Justice Task Force. Photograph: Julian Borger

The two men ruefully scrutinising their shoes in the dock said they were simple labourers, though they had allegedly been found with 27kg of opium in their kitchen, worth a potential UKP250,000 in the west.

In almost any other country, that would count as a significant drugs bust. In Afghanistan, the poppy-growing hub of the world, where drug exports are worth more than UKP1.5bn a year and where seizures sometimes exceed a tonne at a time, it was just another unremarkable day in the drug war.

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Geography, Migration And Heroin Industry Put Population At Risk

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Sitting on his father's lap, the 18-month-old was oblivious to the infection in his veins.

But his father, a burly farmer, knew only too well. It was the same one that killed his wife four months ago, leaving him alone with four children. The man started to cry.

"When my wife died, I thought, well, it is from God, but at least I have him," he said. "Then I learned he is sick too. I asked if there is medicine and the doctors said no. They said, 'Just trust in God."'

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KABUL, Afghanistan -- Sitting and eating quietly on his father's lap, the 18-month-old was oblivious to the infection in his veins.

But his father, a burly farmer, knew only too well. It was the same one that killed his wife four months ago, leaving him alone with four children. The man started to cry.

"When my wife died, I thought, well, it is from God, but at least I have him," he said. "Then I learned he is sick, too. I asked if there is medicine and the doctors said no. They said, 'Just trust in God.' "

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KABUL: Sitting and eating quietly on his father's lap, the 18-month-old boy was oblivious to the infection running through his veins.

But his father, a burly farmer, now a widower and father of four, knew only too well. It was the same one that killed his wife, the boy's mother, four months ago. The man started to cry.

"When my wife died, I thought, well, it is from God, but at least I have him," he said. "Then I learned he is sick too. I asked if there is medicine and the doctors said no. They said, 'Just trust in God.'"

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NATO Battles Rising Hostility in Afghanistan

The fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan continues this spring. But as the number of civilian casualties rises, support for Western troops is dropping.

The grave is 14 meters long. The white flags with golden characters flutter in the wind at the tops of bamboo poles. The inscriptions are verses from the Koran meant to guide the dead into the afterlife.

Abdullah Shah stands alone in the Da Mirwais mini Hadira cemetery in western Kandahar, his hands raised to the sky. After completing his prayers, the old man strokes his face and his white beard, as ritual requires. Twenty people are buried beneath the mound of earth at Shah's feet: his wife Miamato, his three sons, 13 grandchildren, two daughters-in-law and a cousin. They died in Lakani, a village in the embattled Panjwai district in southern Afghanistan, at 2:30 in the morning on October 25, 2006. Their lives were extinguished by fire from the 30 mm guns of an American A-10 ground attack aircraft, aka Warthog.

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KABUL, Afghanistan -- Thousands of NATO troops have moved into Afghanistan's biggest opium-growing region to repel an expected springtime counterattack by a resurgent Taliban.

The offensive in Helmand province seeks to cut off drug money that is a major source of funding for the Islamic rebel militia. Analysts say the NATO force will be challenged by comparatively low troop levels and its inability to chase Taliban fighters as they slip in and out of neighboring Pakistan.

"The Taliban is based in Pakistan," says James Dobbins, a former U.S. envoy to Afghanistan. "No Afghan-based operation can do it lasting damage. The best we can do is set them back on their heels."

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KABUL, Afghanistan -- When the deal went down in Las Vegas, the seller was introduced only as Mr. E. In a room at Caesars Palace hotel, Mr. E exchanged a pound-and-a-half bag of heroin for $65,000 cash, unaware that the buyer was an undercover detective. The sting landed him in a Nevada state prison for nearly four years.

Twenty years later, Mr. E, whose real name is Izzatullah Wasifi, has a new job. He is the government of Afghanistan's anticorruption chief.

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The Radical Plan To Legalise The Opium Trade

It is a brazen idea. But support is growing for claims that the best way to attack the Afghan opium crisis is to harness it as a legitimate supplier to a hungry international pharmaceutical industry.

The argument is that faltering efforts to eradicate opium in Afghanistan are a misguided waste of billions of dollars.

Between them, the US and British governments have already pledged $US2 billion to anti-narcotics campaigns here, but much of it leaks to corruption or is sunk in security and judicial revitalisation projects that will take years to bear fruit.

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It is a brazen idea. But support is growing for claims that the best way to attack the Afghan opium crisis is to harness it as a legitimate supplier to a hungry international pharmaceutical industry.

The argument is that faltering efforts to eradicate opium in Afghanistan are a misguided waste of billions of dollars.

Between them, the US and British governments have already pledged $US2 billion to anti-narcotics campaigns here, but much of it leaks to corruption or is sunk in security and judicial revitalisation projects that will take years to bear fruit.

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U.S.-Backed Plan Angers Farmers, May Aid Taliban

DOBUNDI, Afghanistan - (AP) Anguish creased the weathered face of the opium farmer as a U.S.-trained eradication team swept through his farm fields in this southern Afghan village.

With helicopters buzzing overhead, dozens of tractors plowed up Sadullah Khan's sprouting poppy plants, which in two months time would have yielded the sticky resin used to make heroin -- and earned him, by Afghan standards, a generous income.

After failing miserably to curb opium production last year, the Afghan government has launched a renewed eradication drive, particularly here in Helmand province -- which accounted for more than 40 percent of 2006's record yield of 6,725 tons. The U.S. government estimates the opium trade generates $3 billion a year in illicit economic activity.

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Taliban Heartland: Eradication Under Way In Afghanistan

DOBUNDI, Afghanistan - Anguish creased the weathered face of the opium farmer as a U.S. trained eradication team swept through his farm fields in this southern Afghan village.

With helicopters buzzing overhead, dozens of tractors plowed up Sadullah Khan's poppy plants, which in two months time would have yielded the sticky resin used to make heroin and earned him, by Afghan standards, a generous income.

After failing to curb opium production last year, the Afghan government has launched a renewed eradication drive, particularly here in Helmand province which accounted for more than 40 percent of the 2006 record yield of 6,725 tons. The U.S. government estimates the opium trade generates $3 billion a year in illicit economic activity.

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AFGHANISTAN has warned it could unravel into a terrorist-backed narco-state unless Australia and the rest of the international community send specialist police to combat the heroin trafficking which is funding the Taliban insurgency.

The war-battered nation's ambassador to Canberra, Mohammed Anwar Anwarzai, said yesterday Australia's military deployment had helped build local trust, but a dangerous vacuum existed in the wake of their withdrawal last year.

Afghanistan's woes include the unenviable reputation of being the world's biggest supplier of heroin.

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As NATO braces for a spring Taliban offensive in Afghanistan, many in the Bush administration, the Congress and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime are calling for it to take on a prominent role in combating the narcotics trade.

Although this task is meant to help Afghanistan repress the worrisome, if predictable, expansion of its opium economy, it will greatly hamper NATO's effectiveness. NATO's crucial role is to establish security throughout the country -- and not to dilute its focus in eradication and interdiction missions that are presently bound to fail. It is not that NATO should simply turn a blind eye to the opium trade.

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