MORE HELP NEEDED IN DRUG FIGHT, AFGHAN SAYS

Drug Czar: World 'Very Slow' To Take on Poppy Farming Tied to Taliban

KABUL, Afghanistan - The international community has been "very slow"
to combat Afghanistan's booming trade in opium and heroin, while the
Taliban has forced farmers to plant poppies to fund the rebel
insurgency, the country's top anti-drug official said Monday.

The anti-drug czar, Gen. Mohammed Daud Daud, promised a crackdown on
drug smugglers in 2006. Last year's bumper opium crop -- enough to
make about 450 tons of heroin -- sparked warnings the country is fast
becoming a "narco-state" four years after the U.S.-led invasion ousted
the Taliban for harboring al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

The international community is pumping hundreds of millions of dollars
into anti-drug campaigns to train police units to destroy
laboratories, arrest smugglers and destroy opium crops, as well as to
fund projects to help farmers grow legal crops.

But Daud said that the United States and other nations must do more to
help eradicate narcotics in Afghanistan -- source of nearly 90 percent
of the world's opium and heroin -- especially providing alternative
sources of income for poppy farmers.

"In 2005, we were not satisfied and the farmers were not satisfied,"
Daud, the deputy interior minister and commander of a special
anti-drugs force, told The Associated Press in an interview. "We need
to increase alternative livelihoods for the farmers."

He added that despite promises of help to curb poppy cultivation, the
international community's "action has been very slow," and accused the
Taliban of forcing farmers to grow opium.

"They used to fund themselves through drug sales and they are now
doing their best to continue this," Daud said.

The general said 1,300 police officers would be deployed this month
from Kabul to provinces where help is needed to enforce the anti-poppy
campaign.

Speaking to reporters earlier Monday, Daud said "2006 will be the year
when we will arrest all smugglers, especially those working with the
government."

Afghanistan's drug trade is blamed for fighting in some poppy-growing
areas.

Other Developments

* A suicide bombing Monday wounded a U.S. soldier and two Afghan
civilians in the main southern city of Kandahar. The assailant
detonated explosives packed in a car near a U.S. military convoy.

* The Afghan government ordered the U.S. Embassy, the U.N. and other
organizations to remove by Friday security barriers blocking streets
in the capital and causing traffic jams. A U.N. spokesman said the
barricades are necessary security provisions and a U.S. military
spokesman said many international groups have voiced concerns over the
government's proposal.