AFGHAN ANTI-OPIUM EFFORT INTENSIFIES

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.

There is some armed resistance to the campaign in Helmand, where drug
gangs and Taliban militants form a powerful nexus against President
Hamid Karzai's unpopular government. Still, counter-narcotics
officials expect better results this year -- if not a resounding success.

That's cold comfort to Khan, a 55-year-old father of nine, who owns
25 acres of land planted with poppies.

"When they are eradicating my poppy, it's just like they are
destroying my home," he said, watching the heavily armed Afghan teams
at work -- supported by a handful of U.S. contractors, who rode in
pairs through the rolling poppy fields on all-terrain vehicles.

There are fears the program could increase support for Taliban
insurgents, but Karzai is under growing international pressure to
crack down on Afghan drug production.

Last week, President Bush called poppy cultivation a threat to
Afghanistan's fragile democracy. Bush said he had told Karzai "to
gain the confidence of his people, and the confidence of the world,
he's got to do something about it, with our help."

The year 2006 saw an alarming 59 percent rise in opium cultivation to
407,700 acres, deepening fears that Afghanistan is rapidly becoming a
narco-state.

A Western counter-narcotics official said it was too early for an
accurate prediction of this year's crop, but he listed some positive signs.

Cultivation probably will drop significantly in the north and
northeast while increasing slightly in some areas of the south, said
the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the
sensitivity of the issue.

The government, he said, has launched eradication "earlier and with
more determination" than last year and has warned officials they
would be fired if they didn't take action.

Lt. Gen. Mohammed Daoud Daoud, the deputy interior minister for
counter-narcotics, said 8,900 acres of poppy fields have been
destroyed nationwide in the past month. The target is to destroy
almost 14 times that figure -- a total of 123,550 acres -- before the
harvest, which runs from April to July, from the south to the colder north.

The Western official doubted that target will be reached. But he said
he hoped that 15 percent to 20 percent of the planted fields will be
eradicated to demonstrate the "business risk" to poppy growers. Last
year, only about 8 percent of planted fields were destroyed.

The campaign, supported mainly by the United States and Britain,
carries a political and military risk for the government and its
Western allies. It could generate more recruits for the Taliban, the
militia that is threatening a spring offensive against NATO forces.

There have been five attacks in the past two weeks against the
eradication campaign in Helmand, Farah and Nangarhar provinces, Daoud
said. In the worst incident, a roadside bomb in Helmand's Nad Ali
district killed two police officers and wounded three serving as
guards for the eradication team.

To mitigate the risk of a backlash by farmers, authorities say they
are targeting areas where there's little reason not to grow crops
like wheat and vegetables -- rather than dry, remote fields where
farmers may feel forced to cultivate opium because they lack good
irrigation or market access.

Most eradication efforts are led by provincial governors who pay
their teams with U.S. money. But there's also a well-equipped,
550-man national eradication force under the Ministry of Interior,
which is advised by the U.S. security contractor DynCorp.

This force has deployed to areas with increased poppy cultivation --
in Nad Ali, for example, where vast poppy fields are irrigated by
canals fed by the Helmand River.

This week, angry farmers in Dobundi village watched as uniformed men
on tractors plowed up foot-tall poppy plants. Counter-narcotics
officials say the farmers should have time to replant with legal crops.

In other villages, farmers have flooded fields to obstruct the
tractors. Dobundi's farmers put up no resistance, but they complained
bitterly, contending that security forces targeted them because the
area is less dangerous than elsewhere in Helmand.

"If the Taliban were in Nad Ali, the government couldn't come here,"
said one farmer, Darath Khan.

He said Karzai's government had failed to bring security or
development, despite the foreign aid that has poured into Afghanistan
over the past five years.

Sadullah Khan spoke for many farmers when he described his dilemma.
"I know it's not good to cultivate poppy, but we don't have any other
option," he said. "If we can't cultivate it, we can't feed our families."

He said his poppy crop earns him four times what a crop of wheat would.

If Sadullah Khan were allowed to harvest his poppies, his 25 acres
probably would yield about 815 pounds of opium, which would fetch
about $37,000 at market, the counter-narcotics official said.

Still, Sadullah Khan owns a relatively large farm in one of the
best-irrigated and fertile regions in the country. By planting wheat
he could, by his estimate, earn roughly $9,250 -- a good income in
rural Afghanistan. Associated Press writer Matthew Pennington in
Kabul contributed to this report.