TEAM TARGRTING OPIUM CROP

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.

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 which accounts for more than 90
percent of global supply.

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 to early for an
accurate prediction of this year's crop, but he noted some positive
signs.

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, 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.

There have been five attacks in the past two weeks against the
eradication campaign, 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.